Top, left to right: Confectioners Sugar, Palm Sugar, Jaggery, Piloncilla, Panela, Buckwheat Honey, Wildflower Honey
Center, left to right: Superfine/Caster Sugar, Raw/Demerra Sugar, Barley Malt Syrup
Bottom, left to right: White Granulated Sugar, Coconut Sugar, Dark Brown Sugar, Light brown sugar, Molasses, Brown Rice Syrup, Coconut Nectar

White Sugars

White Granulated Sugar – highly refined, from sugarcane or sugar beets
Superfine or Caster Sugar – dissolves more easily than granulated sugar, used in shortbread, meringues, syrups, and cocktails. Process sugar in a grinder diy
Confectioner’s or Powdered Sugar – extra-superfine granulated sugar with added cornstarch, used in frostings, shortbread, and for dusting cakes and cookies

Brown Sugars

Demerara or Raw – minimally processed, coarse crystalline grains, pale amber color, slight toffee/molasses flavor. Excellent for baking. Crunchy topping for scones and muffins
Light Brown Sugar – White granulated sugar with molasses
Dark Brown Sugar – Slightly deeper molasses flavor
Coconut Sugar – dehydrated coconut nectar
Palm Sugar – raw sugar from sugar palm (Southeast Asia)
Jaggery – unrefined cane sugar (India)
Pilconcilla – unrefined cane sugar (Mexico)
Panela – unrefined cane sugar brick (Central and Latin America)

Syrups

Brown Rice Syrup – made from cultured cooked rice
Coconut Nectar – tapped from coconut palms
Maple Syrup – tapped from sugar maples
Barley Malt Syrup – unrefined sweetener processed from sprouted malted barley. Delightful malt flavor best mixed with other sweeteners
Molasses – a by-product of sugar refining, choose unsulphured molasses

Honey

A multitude of flavors depending upon which flowers the pollen was collected from. Sweeter than sugar, by weight.

Notes

When baking with any of the syrups or honey, reduce the oven temperature 25 degrees F to prevent burning.
You may notice the absence of both agave and stevia. Agave nectar is subjected to undesirable chemical processing and stevia leaves a bit of a chemical aftertaste.

These are the sweeteners I keep in my pantry. Some are used much more than others. It’s a luxury to have some authentic sugars for Southeast Asian and Indian cooking. The one I use the most is raw sugar, even for baked goods. It has a wonderful depth to it. Brown rice syrup and coconut sugar are new to me. I used the coconut sugar in some homemade granola the other day and it was wonderful.
-Sheila