Everyone loves the sweetness of sugar, but few people know exactly how it’s produced. Diet gurus are constantly talking about reducing or eliminating sugar from our diets. Given our sweet tooth for sugar, is this even possible?
Sugar, now considered a staple, was once so rare and expensive that it was called “white gold.” Sugar cane, the first source of sugar, is a perennial grass that originated in Asia and is now grown in tropical and subtropical areas. Before the widespread use of refined and raw sugar, honey and fruit were the only sweeteners available. During the Napoleonic Wars, the supply of cane sugar from the tropics was cut off. An alternate source of sweetener, which produced the same effects as sugar cane, was discovered in beets. Sugar derived from both sugar cane and sugar beets is 99.8% pure sucrose, a complex sugar made up of glucose and fructose.
Most people think of sugar solely as a sweetener. However, when used in baking, sugar becomes more complex because it also adds volume, tenderness, texture, color, and acts as a preservative. For example, when a recipe calls for creaming butter, margarine, or any fat with sugar, the goal isn’t just to mix the ingredients together. The reason for this step is to incorporate air into the batter. The sugar granules rub against the fat, producing air bubbles. When flour is added, leavening gases enlarge these bubbles, causing the batter to rise during baking.
History of Sugar
The process of making sugar by evaporating juice from sugar cane dates back to India around 500 BC. By 200 BC, China had also begun cultivating it. Westerners first learned about sugarcane during military expeditions to India. Nearchos, one of Alexander the Great’s commanders, described sugar as “a reed that gives honey without bees.”
Initially, people chewed the raw cane to extract its sweetness. Sugar refining developed in South Asia, the Middle East, and China, where it became a staple of cooking. The first refining methods involved grinding or pounding the cane to extract the juice, then boiling or drying it in the sun to produce sugary solids. As trade routes expanded, the use of sugar spread to other regions.
Sugar remained rare and expensive in Europe until the Arabs began cultivating it in Sicily and Spain. The Spanish started growing sugarcane in the West Indies in 1506. Cane sugar is still produced in countries with warm climates, such as Brazil, Pakistan, India, China, and Australia.
In 1747, a German chemist identified sucrose in beetroot. This discovery remained largely theoretical until one of his students established a sugar beet-processing factory. Later, Napoleon Bonaparte, cut off from Caribbean sugar cane imports by the British, banned sugar imports in 1813. This led to the rise of the beet-sugar industry, which now accounts for approximately 30% of world sugar production.
Beet-sugar is produced in regions with cooler climates such as northwest and eastern Europe, northern Japan, and some areas in the United States. In the northern hemisphere, the beet-growing season ends with the harvest in September, and processing continues until March in some areas. The weather and processing plant capacity influence the length of the harvest and processing period.
Sources of Sugar
- Sugar Cane – Cane sugar producers crush the harvested material, collect and filter the juice, then treat the liquid to remove impurities. After neutralizing it with sulfur dioxide, boiling the juice allows sediment to settle at the bottom, while scum rises for skimming. When cooled, the liquid crystallizes into sugar crystals.
- Sugar Beets – Beet sugar producers slice the washed beets and extract the sugar with hot water in a diffuser. An alkaline solution helps precipitate impurities. After filtration, evaporation concentrates the juice to about 70% solids. Controlled crystallization extracts the sugar, and a centrifuge separates the sugar crystals from the liquid. Sieving the white sugar produces different grades for sale.
Cane vs. Beet
There is little difference between sugar produced from beets and that from cane. The residues left behind after sugar production differ based on raw materials and production methods.
Culinary Sugars
Raw Sugars range from yellow to brown and are made from clarified cane juice boiled down into a crystalline solid. Raw sugars are intermediate products from sugar beet juice processing, later refined into white sugar. Specialty raw sugars include demerara, muscovado, and turbinado. Mauritius and Malawi export large quantities of specialty sugars. Manufacturers sometimes prepare raw sugar as loaves by pouring sugar and molasses together into molds, allowing the mixture to dry. This process results in sugar cakes or loaves.
White Refined Sugar has become the most common form of sugar in North America and Europe. Finer grades are made by selectively sieving granulated sugar.
Powdered Sugar – Also known as 10X sugar, confectioner’s sugar, or icing sugar, is made by grinding sugar into a fine powder. A small amount of anti-caking agent or cornstarch may be added to prevent clumping.
Sugar Cubes are made by mixing sugar crystals with sugar syrup.
Brown Sugars are produced in the later stages of sugar refining. The sugar forms fine crystals with higher molasses content or is coated with molasses syrup. The color and taste improve with increasing molasses content, and brown sugars retain moisture. These sugars tend to harden when exposed to air.
How to Store: All granulated sugars can be stored for long periods if tightly sealed and kept in a cool, dry place.
Substitutions in Recipes:
1 cup corn syrup or 1 cup honey (decrease the liquid in the recipe by 1/4 cup) = 1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar = 1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup superfine sugar (caster sugar) = 1 cup granulated sugar
