Types of Sugar

The American Diabetes Association lists agave as a sweetener to limit, along with regular table sugar, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, and all other sugars. Liz Applegate, director of sports nutrition at the University of California, Davis, agrees.

Brown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses. It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content (natural brown sugar), or it is produced by the addition of molasses to refined white sugar (commercial brown sugar).

For cane sugar, this is where the process ends, but refined sugar is further processed to remove any non-sugar ingredients and to transform the sugar crystals into fine granules. Each type of sugar has its own unique properties that distinguish it in terms of taste, appearance and use.

Coconut sugar is also called coconut palm sugar. It’s a natural sugar made from coconut palm sap, which is the sugary circulating fluid of the coconut plant. It is often confused with palm sugar, which is similar but made from a different type of palm tree.

Confectioners’ Sugar Substitute – How To Substitute Confectioner’s Sugar. Mix 1 cup granulated sugar and 1 tablespoon cornstarch in a blender at high speed for several minutes. As with most substitutes, the consistency and texture of the dish may be altered.

Unlike brown sugar, which is just refined white sugar lightly bathed in a bit of molasses (this is a good thing to know, as you can just substitute brown sugar for white sugar with a bit of molasses added), Demerara sugar is a large-grained, somewhat crunchy, raw sugar with origins in Guyana (a colony formerly called Demerara).

All sugar is made by first extracting sugar juice from sugar beet or sugarcane plants, and from there, many types of sugar can be produced. Through slight adjustments in the process of cleaning, crystallizing and drying the sugar and varying the level of molasses, different sugar varieties are possible.

There are many different types of granulated sugar. Some of these are used only by the food industry and professional bakers and are not available in the supermarket. The types of granulated sugars differ in crystal size. Each crystal size provides unique functional characteristics that make the sugar appropriate for a specific food’s special need.

Honey is also made mostly of sugar, but it's only about 30 percent glucose and less than 40 percent fructose. And there are also about 20 other sugars in the mix, many of which are much more complex, and dextrin, a type of starchy fiber.

Pearl sugar is a type of specialty sugar that is often used in baking in Scandinavia and a few other countries in Northern Europe. The sugar is not completely round, like real pearls, but it comes in large round-ish chunks of sugar.

As brown sugar contains some amount of water, it has a slightly lower caloric value by weight than white sugar: calorific value per teaspoon is 11 kcal for raw sugar, 16 kcal for white sugar. Because of the presence of molasses in raw sugar, it has a distinct flavor that is missing in white sugar.

Sanding sugar gives a professional look to baked goods, though it's nothing more than coarsely ground white sugar. Sprinkle the large crystals on sugar cookies or scones, for added crunch, sparkle and color.

Among brand names, SweetLeaf is a sweetener made from stevia extract, and both Truvia and Pure Via are stevia-based. Some stores have generic stevia products. The Scoop: Highly purified stevia extracts, which are what you find on the market, are generally recognized as safe. Some people find that stevia can have a metallic aftertaste. Whole-leaf stevia or crude stevia extracts aren't FDA-approved.

Types of Artificial Sweeteners. Artificial low-calorie sweeteners include: Saccharin (Sweet'N Low, Sugar Twin). You can use it in both hot and cold foods. Avoid this sweetener if you are pregnant or breastfeeding. Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal). You can use it in both cold and warm foods. It may lose some sweetness at high temperatures.

Turbinado sugar is a sugar cane-based, minimally refined sugar. It is medium brown in color and has large crystals. It's often mistaken for traditional It is medium brown in color and has large crystals.