Fine granulated sugar, coarse granulated sugar, soft white sugar, powdered sugar? People who have just come into contact with baking, let alone complex and dazzling dairy products, can be confused by this sugar alone.

These sugars are common in baking. Speaking of sugar, it is an indispensable raw material in baking and plays an extremely important role.

While specifically talking about the differences between these sugars, let's first talk about the role of sugar in baking. Sugar is not only a sweetener, but also has some magical changes in the baking process, bringing many wonderful results. Don't believe it? Look down:

1、 Sugar has water absorption. Adding sugar in baking can not only change the taste, but also strengthen the maintenance of water.

2、 Sugar can enhance the anti-corrosion effect. The higher the sugar content of the formula, the longer the shelf life.

3、 Sugar has coking effect. The higher the sugar content of the formula, the easier it is to color when baking.

4、 Sugar can improve the structure of dough and change the ductility of dough.

Five, sugar can make protein foam more stable. Therefore, when making Qifeng cake, adding enough sugar to the protein will help to make a cake with stable quality.

6、 Sugar is the main target of yeast. Why is sugar added to bread not necessarily sweet? Because sugar is broken down by yeast during fermentation.

7、 Generally speaking, if the amount of sugar in the formula is reduced, it is possible to increase the baking temperature and prolong the baking time.

There are many kinds of sugar in baking. Today, I will mainly introduce the most commonly used ones:

White granulated sugar:

Usually we say fine granulated sugar or coarse granulated sugar, all belong to white granulated sugar. This is the sugar we most often contact. In fact, white granulated sugar can be divided into many grades according to the particle size, such as coarse granulated sugar, general granulated sugar, fine granulated sugar, ultra-fine granulated sugar, young granulated sugar, etc. In baking, when making cakes or biscuits, fine granulated sugar is usually used, which is easier to blend into dough or batter.

Coarse granulated sugar is generally used to make the crust of cakes and biscuits, such as granulated sugar tea biscuits and butterfly crisp. Coarse particles can increase the texture of pastries. Coarse granulated sugar can also be used to make syrup, such as conversion syrup. Coarse granulated sugar is not suitable for making cookies, cakes, bread and other pastries, because it is not easy to dissolve and is easy to leave large particles in the products.

fine white sugar:

Soft white sugar, as the name suggests, is a very soft white sugar. The reason why it is soft is that it contains a little converted sugar and its water content is higher than that of granulated sugar. In supermarkets in the north, soft white sugar is as common as white granulated sugar.

So, what is the position of soft white sugar in baking? To a certain extent, cotton white sugar has fine particles and can be used as a substitute for fine granulated sugar. However, because the nature of soft white sugar is slightly different from that of white granulated sugar, there will be some differences in the characteristics of pastries. Don't worry, most of the time, using soft white sugar instead of fine granulated sugar will not have much impact on the results.

Many people once worried about whether it would be bad to replace fine granulated sugar with soft white sugar. We need to rest assured that its impact on family baking is much smaller than you think.

Powdered sugar:

Powdered sugar, which can be easily seen from its name, refers to powdered white sugar. For powdered sugar sold on the market, in order to prevent caking in the process of preservation, about 3% starch will be added to the powdered sugar. Powdered sugar has many grades according to the particle thickness. The sugar powder with the specification of "10x" is the thinnest. Generally, 6x powdered sugar is used more.

Powdered sugar is very useful. It can be used to make cookies, cakes, etc. more often, it is used to decorate cakes. On the surface of the cake, sift a layer of powdered sugar, and the appearance will become much more beautiful. It is also used to make icing and cream fillings, such as protein icing when making gingerbread house.

The sugar powder particles are very small and easy to fuse with the batter. It has a good emulsifying effect on the oil and can produce a very uniform structure. Therefore, when making cookies, using some powdered sugar can make the appearance of cookies more beautiful and maintain clear patterns. Many people ask: can sugar powder in the formula be replaced by granulated sugar? I don't usually recommend this.

Powdered sugar can also be ground with a food processor at home. When white sugar is ground into powder with the grinding cup of the food processor, it is powdered sugar. The sugar powder ground by yourself can be used with grinding according to the dosage, and there is no need to add starch. However, if you want to preserve the ground sugar powder, you need to add 3% corn starch to prevent caking.

Brown sugar:

Brown sugar is sometimes called red granulated sugar. However, except for individual varieties (such as Demerara sugar), brown sugar is not as dry and distinct as white granulated sugar, but has a moist texture. In addition to sucrose, it also contains a certain amount of molasses, caramel and other impurities, which has a special flavor. Different varieties of brown sugar have different colors. The darker the color, the more impurities it contains.

Brown sugar has a special flavor, so it is often used to make some cakes with unique flavor. Such as oats, grape biscuits, etc.

If "yellow sugar" and "black sugar" are mentioned in the baking formula, they all belong to the category of brown sugar, but the processing method and impurity content are slightly different.

Xylitol:

Finally, by the way, I would like to mention the "sugar free" snacks that we are most concerned about. Xylitol is the most commonly used sweetener in "sugar free" point. It does not cause blood sugar rise, does not cause dental caries, and has lower calories than sugar, so it is very popular.

If you want to make "sugar free" snacks, replace the sugar in the formula with xylitol. The sweetness of xylitol is similar to that of white sugar and can be replaced in the same amount. For people who don't like too sweet, it can also be reduced.

However, it must be noted that xylitol is not sugar after all, and does not have the general characteristics of sugar. Therefore, after replacing sugar with xylitol, there will be a gap in the dessert. As for what will be different, we can look back and compare the functions of sugar mentioned at the beginning of my article. We should have a clear idea.

In addition, the daily intake of xylitol for adults should not exceed 50g.