Know your ingredients: Sugar

I've often wished that I didn't love sugar the way I do. Wouldn't it be so much better if sugar had the nutritional content of raw spinach? But, as usual, reality wags its finger at us dreamers, and we're forced to choose moderation instead. Boo. Hiss.

If any of you read my chocolate post, you may remember that I said sugar was the most difficult ingredient to bake with. That, to put it plainly, is because sugar is finicky. We'll start picking it apart by looking at the different types of sugar.

Types of sugar:

• White sugar: Also called table sugar, cane sugar, granulated sugar, or just plain sugar in recipes, white sugar is crystalline sucrose. Made by refining and filtering sugar cane and (more commonly) sugar beets, this is the go-to sugar for sweetening baked goods, making caramels and candies, creaming cookies, and whipping meringues.
• Superfine sugar: Also called caster (or castor) sugar, superfine sugar is simply a smaller granule of white sugar. It's main benefit is that it dissolves more easily. This makes it undesirable for aeration (creaming, whipping, etc), though. Sometimes superfine sugars contain cornstarch or other additives, something to be mindful of when purchasing and baking with it. You can also make your own using a food processor or spice grinder.
• Powdered sugar: Also called confectioners sugar, 10X sugar, and icing sugar, powdered sugar is most often used to make icings. It is white sugar which has been pulverized into a powder and mixed with a small amount of cornstarch to prevent caking.
• Sanding sugar, coarse sugar, rock sugar, etc: These are sugars left in a very coarse granule, usually used as garnish. Often you see them colored.
• Brown sugar: Both the light and dark variety are made the same way: by adding some molasses (a product of sugar refinery) back into refined white sugar. Brown sugar is more moist and needs to be compacted to be accurately measured by volume. Has a slightly caramelized flavor.
• Raw sugars: This category contains a lot of uncommon sugars such as demerara, muscovado, turbinado, piloncillo, and jaggery. These sugars are partially refined, containing various amounts of molasses. Though they are normally softer than other sugars, there is a lot of variety between the various sugars.

Sugar preparations:

• Boiling: Boiling sugar involves cooking sugar (and usually a bit of water), into a certain temperature, at which point it cools with certain characteristics. These temperatures are generally called stages. Sugar crystals are constantly changing in alignment and structure as they cook, resulting in the different stages of cooked sugar. The lowest temperature at which a change occurs, called thread stage, is 230 degrees F. The next state, soft ball, occurs at 234 degrees F and is used for applications like fudge. The firm ball stage occurs at 244 degrees F and is used for caramels. At 250 degrees F sugar reaches the hard ball stage, at which point it can be used for things like divinity and nougat. Sugar's first crack stage is soft crack, at 270 degrees F. Taffy is sometimes made from sugar at the soft crack stage. At 300 degrees F, sugar is at the hard crack stage, at which point suckers and hard candies are made. Sugar caramelizes at 320 degrees F and burns above 350 degrees. When boiling sugar I find it helpful to grease the sides of the pan, add an acid such as lemon juice to the sugar, and brush down the sides of the pan with water while cooking. The reason for these steps is to ensure proper crystallization, since it only takes one stray crystal to turn an entire batch of sugar. Boiling sugar is why the ingredient gets my award for most finicky. Some of the stages are only four or five degrees off of each other. This means a very accurate thermometer is needed and a very patient and watchful eye. Sugar also tends to make jumps in temperature when it is cooking. It'll hover around 230 for 5 minutes, but then jump up past 250 within 30 seconds. Needless to say, boiling sugar can cause frustration.
• Creaming and whipping: Creaming and whipping both involve incorporating sugar and air into other substances. In the case of creaming, the "other substance" is normally butter. Beating together rough sugar crystals creates friction in the mixer which helps to incorporate and trap air better. The sugar gives the aerated butter stable structure. The same thing goes for cream and egg whites. The structure that sugar gives to the whipped cream or whites helps them to keep aerated for much longer. 

The information for this post comes from CookWise, an amazing book called In the Sweet Kitchen by Regan Daley that everyone should check out, and a small bit from myself.

And that's sugar. If I missed anything, I'm counting on you all to let me know.

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