Day 125 -- I Love My Sweeties -- Sap

I was watching a reality show the other day about a guy who gets dropped on a deserted island and he's left to fend for himself.  He's forced to build a shelter and search out sources for food.  After ten or fifteen days, he's really dragging and I was thinking that he could use a candy bar or something sweet for a pick-up.  Then, I realized, that although sugar is a mainstay of our diets, we really don't know much about it -- beyond the fact that it comes from sugar cane.

There are so many different sources of "sweet" that I decided to do a little research.  In looking through vegan backing recipes, I've come on any number of sweeteners that I don't recognize. On Day ?, I talked about agave nectar, but over the next three days, I'm going to look at a few more.  I know that sugar is basically sugar, no matter where it comes from, but I'm still curious.

As I said, the primary source of sugar in this country comes from the sap of the sugar cane plant.  It's usually dryed or boiled to extract the sap and can be made into cane juice, syrup, molasses, powdered sugar, and granulated sugar.  Many vegans use demerara, muscovado or turbinado sugar in baking.  What's the difference?  This article from the Baking Bites website offers an explanation -- What Are Demerara, Muscovado and Turbinado Sugars?  Another article, What's The Difference -- Muscovado, Turbinado and Demerara  quoted below, adds some other less refined sugars to the mix.

• Demerara - This is a type of cane sugar with a fairly large grain and a pale amber color. It has a pleasant toffee flavor and can be used in place of brown sugar.

• Turbinado - Less processed than brown sugar, turbinado is made from the first pressing of sugar cane and retains some natural molasses. It has a light caramel flavor that makes it a good replacement for regular white sugar.

• Muscovado - Another cane sugar, this one has a very moist texture and a strong molasses flavor. It can be found in different strengths, as you can see visually in the image above and read about here. It's excellent in savory dishes like barbecue sauces and marinades.

• Sucanat - Made from crystallized pure cane sugar, this truly unrefined sugar retains a higher proportion of molasses than other types of cane sugars. It has an intense, rather burnt taste that can be jarring in lighter baking recipes but is fantastic in things like spice cakes and ginger cookies.

• Jaggery - This sugar is typically made from palm, coconut, or java plants and comes compressed into a pattycake or cone. It has an earthy sweet flavor that we like over oatmeal and in some fruit crumbles.

• Piloncilo - Similar to jaggery, this uniquely Mexican sugar is the secret ingredient in many salsas, soups, and mole sauces. It has a strong and almost-smoky molasses flavor.  In Central and Latin America, this product is called panela.

Other types of sugars come from sap.  Maple sugar/syrup is the most obvious, but other trees such as birch and palm (date palm, coconut palm and others) also produce sweet sap, as does the sugar pine. John Muir thought that sugar pine syrup was tastier than maple syrup!   Sorghum and maize plants also product a sweet sap.  And of course, agave sweetener, which comes from the sap of the agave plant.

In my next installment of "I Love My Sweeties", I'll learn more about sugar made from seeds and roots!