Too much of it is a bad thing, but it’s hard to make many things without it. Here’s our guide to the white stuff
Granulated sugar
The white sugar we’re all familiar with. You can use it in baking just like caster sugar, although it may take a touch long to cream together with butter. It’s also the sugar we use to sweeten tea and coffee.
Salted caramel brownies recipe
Caster sugar
The workhorse sugar for baking with, its small size makes it easier to cream with butter for sponges and cake. Comes in two varieties, golden and regular, but they’re the same thing; golden caster sugar is a natural colour whereas white caster sugar has been refined.
Icing sugar
Fine milled to a powder, icing sugar is normally used for buttercream fillings and toppings, as it dissolves easily when mixed with a little water. It’s also used for dusting cakes.
Mary Berry's vanilla cupcakes with swirly icing recipe
Demerara sugar
Demerara is partially refined sugar originally from Guyana, whereas brown sugar is ordinary white granulated sugar with molasses added to colour it brown. Demerara also has larger grains than granulated or caster, and so is best used in things like biscuits and crumble toppings where you want a sweet crunch.
Sugar-cured salmon with potato tortilla recipe
Muscovado sugar
A dark, fudgey-flavoured moist sugar that clumps together rather than flowing freely like the sugars above. This sugar is best used in rich dark bakes and cakes, so think tea loaves and Christmas cake. Interestingly it can also be paired with beef as the recipe below shows.
Horseradish and sugar crusted beef recipe
Golden syrup
A liquid sugar made from the juice leftover from refining. This used to get thrown away, until Charles Eastick found a way to refine it in 1885. Lyle’s golden syrup is Britain’s oldest trademarked product, and has pretty much always been sold in the same tins. Has a host of uses in the kitchen, from giving a sticky glaze to ribs and meats to adding a sweetness to porridge.
Baked Bramley apple and treacle roly poly recipe
Sugar syrup
You see this a lot in cocktail recipes. It’s basically any sugar dissolved in a liquid. There are however some culinary uses for it: it’s great for glazing things like hot-crossed buns, and can be used as an ingredients in the lovely light cake below.
Lorraine Pascale's Mojito Genoese cake recipe
Palm sugar
Unlike other sugars which are made of sugar cane or sugar beet, palm sugar is made by boiling and reducing the sap of three types of tropical palm tree (interestingly they have to be over 15-20 years old before they start producing sap). Consequently it’s mainly used in Thai and south-east Asian cooking, both in sweets and desserts, but also savoury dishes like pad thai and curries.
You might also enjoy:
All our baking recipes and features
Basic techniques: how to cream butter and sugar