Baking in the UK: Sugar

Ah, sugar, how sweet thy name. And how filled with calories!

There is currently a trend in the kitchen where sugar is substituted by various things such as apple sauce, honey, maple syrup or agave to make cooking and baking healthier. And perhaps a sweetener by any other name would taste as sweet, but I'll leave it up to you to decide.

In my kitchen, using alternatives often ends up with dessert just sitting there because my sweet-toothed husband doesn't find it sweet enough. Which brings me to my subject today, as a follow up to my last post about flour here in England.

The entire baking aisle at the grocery stores here had me daunted, not just the flour section. Back home in Montreal, I was used to the usual granulated sugar, brown sugar (light and dark), and icing sugar. Here in southern England, I am faced with:

White granulated sugar
White caster sugar
Icing sugar
Golden granulated sugar
Golden caster sugar
Demerara cane sugar
Light soft brown sugar
Dark soft brown sugar
Half spoon sugar (sweetener)

Got all that? And like the bags of flour, they all come in different sizes, probably due to the fact that there is simply no space here to store anything.

White granulated sugar, icing sugar, and light and dark soft brown sugar, are pretty much what we know. Well, we call soft brown sugar simply brown sugar back home, but when you see it in the bags here, you won't think twice about its use.

Golden granulated sugar—do not confuse this with brown sugar in British recipes, no matter what you read online! I made a banana bread with brown sugar when the recipe called for golden granulated sugar, and it didn't turn out sweet at all! Golden granulated is in fact "raw", "unrefined" sugar. It has a natural golden colour, and tastes a bit like molasses. (Golden caster sugar, is a finer grind of this type of sugar.)

Things get a bit trickier when looking at caster sugar, and its golden counterpart. British recipes do call for this particular sugar, so allow me to clarify it for you. In America, caster/castor sugar is apparently known as Superfine sugar (not to be confused with 10x Superfine which refers to icing/powdered sugar). It comes from the same plant and is refined the same way as granulated sugar. The only difference is it has been ground more finely than the granulated kind, making it quicker to melt, and supposedly aiding in achieving a lighter, airier structure. You can make your own caster sugar by throwing granulated sugar into a food processor or coffee grinder. The best substitute for golden caster sugar (in Canada/USA) would be Superfine sugar.

Demerara cane sugar is a much less refined version of cane sugar, with a pale golden colour, a crunchy, coarser grain than granulated, and a mild caramel flavour. It is often referred to as/confused with Turbinado and Muscovado (which are similar types of sugar), yet from what I can tell, they are just as viable an option, health-wise.

Part of an aisle of sugar at Asda.

For your information, though I have not seen half spoon sugar listed as an ingredient in any of my recipes, it is regularly on the shelves here, so allow me to explain... Half spoon sugar is essentially granulated sugar mixed with artificial sweetener (aspartame, acesulfame, etc.) allowing for half the calories with all the taste. When baking, if you're using half spoon sugar, only put in half the required amount. For instance, if your recipe asks for a cup of sugar, use only half a cup of half spoon sugar. One ick with this product (you know, aside from the artificial crap in it), is that your cake may lack a bit of body since sugar adds to the air ratio in your mix, so you might have to add more baking powder.

With regards to baking and sweeteners, some of you may ask: "What about treacle or black treacle?" Well. Treacle is a golden syrup made during the sugar-refining process. Black treacle is treacle's darker version, and what we call molasses.

Nigella is well-placed to answer questions related to cooking and baking in the UK vs the Americas. Also, if you're an avid baker with plenty of cupboard space and don't mind stocking up on sugar, here is a list of what sugar to use to get specific results.

For those interested in sugar, here's an interesting link from the Canadian Sugar Institute that I found whilst researching the subject.

One last thing to think on: Go refined or unrefined? Now that is the question.