Dark sugars

Dark sugar

less processed sugar from cane juice and palm sap

Dark Sugar:

I use dark sugar in a fair amount of my savory cooking. Some of these dark sugars include sucanat (my favorite), Japanese dark sugar, coconut sugar or palm sugar (taken from the sap of a palm tree— coconut, date and others; sold in cake form in Southeast Asia), jaggery (India — sold caked and granulated), panela (Chile), chankaka (Brazil). All these dark sugars are made by reducing (usually with heat) extracted sugar cane juice or palm sap to a paste without spinning or filtering out all the natural molasses and minerals. Whereas, white, granulated sugar has been boiled, reduced, spun, filtered, clarified and centrifuged, many times over to remove all other byproducts from the sugar, leaving only sucrose. Domino’s brown sugar as with most commercial brown sugar is made by mixing processed white sugar with molasses.

The “healthfulness” of these sugars when you compare them to white sugar is debatable. These darker, less processed sugars do have more minerals and vitamins in them but the amounts are negligible compared to other nutrient dense foods you eat on a daily basis. The overall amount of sucrose is less, gram for gram when you compare the dark sugars to white sugar, which is 99.9% sucrose. Dark sugars are comprised of mostly sucrose, fructose, glucose, a few trace minerals and vitamins (iron, calcium, potassium, Vitamin B6, to name a few) and water. Sucanat, for example is 88% sucrose.

Dark sugars are not only less sweet because of reduced sucrose, but also because they have a deep, dark, layered flavor profile, a sweet and umami taste, which works well with savory curries, spicy salads, soy based dishes, stews, squashes and sweet potatoes and many other preparations. These sugars add flavor and sweetness to many desserts and gelatos. Try them instead of commercial brown sugar in a chocolate chip cookie recipe or a butterscotch brownie recipe.