Sweetners is soul of all desserts. But in the world there are different types of sweetners occurred. If you want make good food or baked good food study the sweetners is most important part of cooking.
In my listing there are 17 types of sweetners listed they are popular in the world.
1) Granulated Sugar
Usually obtained from Sugarcane, this is the regular white sugar that is used in homes. Usage of this sugar will find it’s place in any preparation, that has sufficient liquid to dissolve it.
2) Castor sugar/Breakfast sugar
Mostly use in breakfast for tea and coffee and hence the name suggest as a Castor sugar or breakfast sugar. It is small graded sugar crystals that dissolve quickly and are easier to dissolve in the creaming methods.
Compare to grain Sugar it is the expensive.
3) Icing Sugar
It is the form of Granulated sugar which crush into fine powder and added into corn starch for to keep it smooth and free flowing. It is mostly use as icing for the cakes and pastries and hence name suggest as icing sugar.
4) Brown sugar
This is a granulated sugar that is available in variety of shades of brown. The darker brown sugar is also known as Demerara sugar and darker the colour, more pronounced is the flavour.
Brown sugar is the residual sugar obtained during the process of refining sugar.
5) Golden syrup
Golden syrup is a thick-coloured liquid obtained from sugar during the refining process. It is treated with acid to cut down on the sharp taste. Golden syrup look similar to honey and used to making confectionery products.
6) Corn syrup
It is chemically refined syrup made from corn kernels. This is usually obtained as a clear liquid and the coloured corn syrup is artificially coloured. It is very sweet and contains high amount of fractose.
7) Maple syrup
Generally it is the natural sweetener and is a sap of maple trees. It is boiled down to thick syrup. Pure maple syrup is very expensive as to obtain 1 litre of maple one has to boil down at least 40 litres of maple sap.
8) Treacle
When the sugar cane juice undergoes refining, it undergoes many statges the first stage comes when the white sugar or the raw sugar is removed. The remaining sugar syrup is used to make treacle, and which is stronger than golden syrup but less than molasses.
9) Honey
I think you know about it’s honey, and it’s obtain from ….. so, honey is the natural sugar and it obtained from bee hives. The colour and flavour of honey will vary with it’s source. Some commercial honey farms allow bees to suck the nectar from only one particular flower to produce the honey of that flavour.
Honey mostly used in baked products but while cooking care has to be taken as honey can caramelize even at lower temperature.
10) Date sugar
These are obtained from the drying and pulverizing the dates. It is very sweet and although it does not dissolve very well. Date sugar mostly used in baked products.
11) Palm sugar
Palm sugar is traditionally made from the sap of Palmyra palm or the date palm. It is extensively used in Asian cooking especially Thai.
13) Jaggery
Jaggery is a product made in India, Africa and south America. It is produced from sugarcane and is healthy and nutritious as the whole sugar cane juice is cooked with mollasses. The colour of jaggery or Gur as commonly known in India can be light to dark depending upon the degree of cooking.
13) Mollasses
Molasses is the by product of sugar from sugar cane. There are three stages of refining of sugar and with every stage, a residual sweetener is left behind which is known as molasses. As the stage increase the colour and the flavour of the mollasses become more strong and darker.
14) Invert sugar
These are sucrose-based syrups that are treated with acids or chemicals. The acid breaks the sucrose molecule into glucose and fructose. Since there are now two molecules of sugar it will be sweeter than sucrose. Corn syrup is the types of Invert sugar.
15) Liquid glucose
This types of sweetners obtained by treating the corn slurry by acid, a process known as hydrolysis. Basically this is chemically made and results in a thick viscous liquid that is used to produce candies by not allowing the sugar to crystallize and also acts a preservative.
Liquid glucose contains the dextrin gum that retards the crystallization of sugar.
16) Isomalt
It is natural sugar substitutes and in reality, it is a sugar alcohol. It is available in crystalline forms and is used for preparing sugar Garnishes as it is more stable than sugar and does not caramelize, thereby giving an appearance of thin sheets.
17) Sugar Substitutes
These types of sweetners are chemically produced and have no nutrition value at all. Saccharin and cyclamates are best known. More use in food that are made for diabetic people. It has a slight bitter taste and is used as a sweetner In low calorie or diet soft drinks.
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