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We all know sugar adds sweetness, but it has many other purposes in cooking too. Here’s how best to use it – and how to include it in a balanced diet.
From stabilising meringues and adding crunch to biscuits, to balancing flavour in savoury dishes and preserving fruit, there’s more to sugar than just sweetness. But eating too much is bad for your health, so we need to be careful how much we eat. Sugar is produced from plants like sugar beet and sugar cane, and is also found in fruit, veg, honey and dairy products.
Sugar is high in calories and contributes few other nutrients. The recommended daily intake is 95g for men, 90g for women and 85g for children aged 5-10. The NHS recommends no more than 5% of your daily calorie intake should come from free sugars.
This is the sugar that is added to food and drinks (before you buy it, or by you at home), or sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, unsweetened fruit juice and smoothies.
It can cause tooth decay. Also, free sugars are released into the bloodstream at a fast rate, resulting in elevated blood sugar. If this persists, it can lead to weight gain, increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Refined brown sugar is essentially white sugar with added molasses (the treacle left over after sugar is extracted from the cane) to give a caramel-like taste and a darker colour. Brown sugar is also stickier in texture because it contains more liquid than white sugar, making it perfect for caramelised onions or salted caramel sauce.
This is finely ground sugar mixed with cornflour to stop it clumping together. It dissolves quickly in liquid and picks up colour well, so is ideal for using to decorate cakes or biscuits, such as these zesty shortbreads. Combine with chocolate for delicious chocolate buttercream, perfect for decorating this chocolate cake.
Also known as table sugar, this has larger crystals than caster or icing sugar. It’s often used for making jams and marmalade, as the larger grains dissolve slowly and evenly when heated.
Also known as agave nectar, this syrup is produced from agave plants and has become a popular vegan alternative to honey, like in this vegan peach ice cream and as a marinade for BBQ mushrooms. It’s sweeter than regular sugar, so you’ll need to use less.
A thick, golden liquid made by honeybees, honey is fragrant with a floral flavour. Drizzle over fig tarts and cheese-topped sourdough, flavour a roast chicken or use to add sweetness to tagines, salads and more.
Both light and dark varieties contain molasses so have an intense caramel flavour, which works well in barbecue sauces, chutneys and marinades, as well as in sticky puddings.
A dark liquid that comes from boiling the sap of maple trees, maple syrup has a sweet caramel taste and works in both sweet and savoury foods. Drizzle it over porridge, use it as a glaze for gammon, try it in frosting or pair it with bacon in scones and sarnies.
Finely granulated white or pale golden sugar, caster sugar dissolves quickly, which makes it ideal for baking. It’s the go-to for making meringues as the small granules blend well with the beaten egg whites.
This is made by refining sugar cane into a clear, amber liquid. It’s sweeter than sugar and is best known for its use in traditional desserts such as steamed puddings and treacle sponges, but is also great for making caramel, honeycomb.
This minimally refined cane sugar has large grains, which can be used to add texture and crunch to crumbles and cakes, like this apple cake. It also has a subtle caramel flavour that works well in iced coffee.
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