I just received a copy of The Whole Seed Catalog 2014 from Baker Creek. This is a large 324 page book full of seeds for vegetables and flowers accompanied by the beautiful pictures Baker Creek is known for. This book is more then just a seed catalogue though. There are also some short articles covering a variety of gardening and heirloom subjects, and recipes. One recipe which caught my eye uses those small Sweet Dumpling pumpkins, which I happen to have! Yeah! However when reading the recipe I found it calls for turbinado and sucanut sugars, and so began my search to figure out what these exactly were.
Just a quick search on google turns up many varied references to what these are. Surprisingly the exact definition seems to vary from source to source. These sugars are different from white sugar because of the amount and kind of processing that is used to create them. Turbinado sugar gets its name from the turbines use when processing it, and is more commonly known as Sugar in the Raw. Sucanut (abbreviation for sugar-cane-natural) is dehydrated sugar cane juice. It is said to have a stronger molasses flavor and still contain a small amount of minerals, though not enough to be nutritionally significant. Personally I have only used Sugar in the Raw and know it is a little different to cook with then white sugar, but with a little trial and error I’m sure you could learn how to use these sugars in every day cooking should you desire to. To get you started here are some delicious looking recipes from Yummly and I hope you check out this new book from Baker Creek as well!
Until next time Happy Thanksgiving!
Sources:
Chow.com
Better then Sugar
