Sugary Sweetness

That bag of white sugar in your pantry may be made from cane plants grown in the tropics, but it’s just as likely to have come from the gnarled white sugar beets grown in the fields of southern Alberta. There’s no way to tell by taste or appearance.

The sugar beet was first introduced to this province in 1903. By the late 1990s, producers were putting out as much as 627 tonnes of sugar per day. Some of that sweetness enhances the taste of food and drinks; sometimes it’s a necessary ingredient for baking. Sugar tenderizes meat, acts as a preservative, and lets berries release their juices for jam making. Add some sugar to oil when browning meat to give it a nice rich colour.

At the Rogers Sugar factory in Taber, beets are thinly sliced and then heated in water to extract their natural sugar. A three-stage crystallization process follows, resulting in 99 per cent pure sucrose grains. The Taber facility typically works on a seasonal basis between October and May. (The company refines cane sugar in its B.C. facility.) The bar code on a bag of Rogers tells you if the contents came from the B.C. or Alberta facility. If the code starts with A, your sugar is from Alberta beets.

Granulated white sugar is the workhorse of sweeteners, found in pantries and sugar cubes. To achieve its colour, cane sugar is processed through active charcoal or bone char to remove the molasses. (Beet sugar doesn’t go through this step.) White sugars can be coarse, such as sanding sugar for decorating cookies, or tiny-grained berry sugar. Powdery confectioner’s sugar is crushed sugar mixed with cornstarch.

Brown sugar is moister and stickier than white. Unrefined brown is crystallized cane sugar that has not been completely purified. It imparts a rich, caramel sweetness. Other browns are partly purified by washing surface molasses off. Generally, the darker the sugar, the more molasses. But some brown sugars are refined sugar with colour and flavour added. Read the label.

Liquid sweetener is a syrupy liquid made from white sugar and water. It’s great for sweetening iced tea or iced coffee, or for adding a touch of sweetness to homemade granola. Some people use corn syrup, or cane syrup, which has a richer flavour.