The Difference Between Sugar Types

Sugar Types

Everyone loves the sweet, irreplaceable taste of sugar in their food and beverages. Sugar helps caramelize foods, it provides great flavor in icings, glazes, and sauces, and it naturally moisturizes and extends the shelf life of our favorite treats. Sugar is found in most plants, but it’s most commonly extracted from sugarcane and sugar beets.

These are just the basics, but did you know that there are many, many sigar types and other sweeteners? Which sugar or sweetener you need depends on your product and specific needs. Read on for Indiana Sugar’s guide to many popular sweetener and sugar types!

Granulated Sugar

Chances are, when you think of “sugar,” you think of granulated sugar! That’s because granulated sugar is a staple both at home and in the food industry. Indiana Sugars carries fine white granulated, extra fine granulated, granulated cane, and granulated beet sugars. Extra fine white granulated sugar is perfect for delicate, melt in your mouth desserts or in cold beverages where sugar should be dissolved, not clumped up at the bottom of the glass. Granulated cane sugar has a fruity aroma, and it’s perfect for caramelization. Granulated beet sugar is earthy and often produces a crunchy texture, excellent for specific baked goods.

Powdered Sugar

There are many names for this delectable sweetener: powdered sugar, confectioners’ sugar, icing sugar! Powdered sugar is a finely-ground, granulated sugar that is milled into a powder according to desired specifications. The fresh, clean sweetness and fluffy texture of powdered sugar pairs excellent in food industry products such as confections, icings, frostings, glazes, and fillings. Industrial food production uses powdered sugar for quick-dissolving applications. To prevent caking and ensure a smooth flow, a small amount of corn starch (3%-5%) is always added to our powdered sugar.

Drivert® Sugar is the most refined grain of all powdered sugars, typically used in icings, frostings, fondants, fudges, and pan-coated confections. You can use Drivert® sugar to create superior food products with a perfectly smooth finish and no trace of grain or grittiness.

Brown Sugar

Brown sugar is a mixture of fine grain white sugar and a film of molasses. Brown sugar is cherished for its rich and complex caramel, toffee, and butterscotch flavors. At Indiana Sugars, we provide the highest quality light, medium, and dark bulk brown sugars.

Did you know that the grade of brown sugar (light to medium to dark) darkens relative to the amount of molasses present in the sugar? Light brown sugar is commonly used for baking cookies, cake, bread, butterscotch pudding, and caramel corn. Medium brown sugar is very flexible for baking purposes. Last but not least, dark brown sugar is usually created with twice as much molasses as light brown sugar, about 6.5%. Due to the amount of molasses in dark brown sugar, recipes requiring a deep, complex flavor – typically complimenting cinnamon, ginger, or cloves – often call for dark sugar. Among the most common recipes with dark brown sugar are gingerbread or chocolate cake.

Organic Sugar

At Indiana Sugars, our bulk organic sugar and organic liquid sugar are never grown with synthetic herbicides or pesticides. The National Organic Program (NOP) regulates the “organic” food label in alliance with the USDA. Sugar grown organically must exclude any genetically modified seeds in addition to synthetic herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers.

Turbinado Sugar

Turbinado, demerara, or raw cane sugar is a semi-refined, off-color sugar containing a higher percentage of sucrose than raw sugar, but less than refined sugar. Due to its large crystals, Turbinado is often used to sprinkle over hot cereals, baked goods, desserts, and other products where the sugar needs to hold up well to heat. Turbinado sugar is ideal for vegan and vegetarian lifestyles and is allergen-free for sensitive diets. It’s low-calorie, fat and sodium free, and has a nice, rich aroma.

Liquid Sugar

Liquid Sugar has many uses for many different industries! The food industry uses liquid sugar to add sweetness to beverages, including soda, juice, iced tea, and lemonade. The pharmaceutical industry uses liquid sugar to coat tablets or adds volume or flavor to medications. The food industry also uses organic liquid sugar, which Indiana Sugar provides as well!

Sanding & Colored Sugar

Bulk sanding sugar is the baker’s ideal decorating add-on because of the large, sparkling crystals that do not dissolve in heat. Often confused with coarse sugar, sanding sugar is larger yet smoother in texture, commonly colored for added effect. Due to its reflective nature, it is often called “decorating sugar,” as bulk sanding sugar adds an attractive shimmer to batches of baked goods.

Con AA & Con A Sugar

Con AA and Con A are extremely pure, extra-large grain sugars. They both have very low ash, color, turbidity, and metallic ion content, and they are exceptionally pure, at nearly 100% sucrose. This type of sugar is commonly used in the food industry for boiled syrups and icings, sparkly pastry toppings, shiny and brilliant or bright white candies, cordials and liqueurs, and everyone’s favorite – cotton candy!

Maltodextrin

Maltodextrin is made from wheat, corn, potato starch, or rice. The starches are broken down significantly to create the water-soluble white powder used in multiple applications. Maltodextrin is commonly utilized as a thickening agent. As such, it increases the volume of foods and beverages, including desserts, salad dressings, sauces, and powdered drinks. It’s also frequently applied as a preservative to increase the shelf life of our favorite packaged treats.

Fructose

Fructose is a nonsucrose sugar that occurs naturally in most plants, fruits, and honey. It is the sweetest of all-natural sugars, up to 1.7 times as sweet as sucrose. It’s commonly used as a sweetener in diabetic foods because gram-for-gram imparts more sweetness than any other natural sweetener.

Molasses

Bulk molasses is the concentrated, clarified extract of sugar cane. It is the end product of sugar refining. Molasses is commonly used for table syrups, gingerbread, yeast breads and baked beans.

Why Choose Indiana Sugars for Bulk Sugar?

Indiana Sugars is a multi-generational, family-operated business with over 90 years of experience. For decades, we have provided excellence in the manufacturing and distribution of a variety of sugar, sweetener, and related products – and we continue to provide excellence today.

Above all, at Indiana Sugars, we strive to always meet our customers’ needs and exceed their expectations, both immediate and long-term. Our timely shipments allow for limited downtime and maximized operation. Contact Indiana Sugars today by calling us at (630) 739-9151. You’ll always talk to a human, and we’ll always do our best to make your experience as sweet as possible!