Lime & Cornmeal Cookies with Sucanat
Although I don’t have much of a sweet tooth (these cookies are dusted with sea salt), when I get the urge to bake cookies, I reach for sucanat. It stands for “sugar cane natural” and is essentially dried sugar cane–no more, no less. It’s the only cane sugar that has not been stripped, refined, and processed into nutritional negativity. While it still chiefly consists of sucrose, it doesn’t have as much sucrose as white sugar does; sucanat also retains many more trace nutrients than any of the other refined sugars. (Note: brown sugar, turbinado sugar, demerera sugar, and raw sugar are perceived as being more “natural,” but they’re not–they’re simply white sugar with a bit of molasses added for color.) In biological terms, having less sucrose and more nutrients means that sucanat doesn’t hit your body as hard and as fast as refined sugars do. This gives it a lower GI (glycemic index) value and makes it less likely to cause a spike in blood sugar levels.
Nutrition aside, I vastly prefer the flavor of sucanat over any other type of granulated sugar. Just as raw agave and blackstrap molasses have a unique flavor, so does sucanat: it tastes like the fresh chunk of sugar cane a farmer once handed me in the middle of a cane field in Costa Rica. Sucanat’s aroma, too, is heady and tropical; the grains are dark, rough, and almost smoky…yet in baked goods, it simply underscores the overall flavor rather than overwhelming it. Once you’ve come to appreciate the warmth of sucanat, in fact, baked goods made with white sugar taste sickeningly sweet and listless.
Sucanat is also easier to substitute for white sugar since it’s a 1:1 equivalent. (Liquid sweeteners like honey and maple syrup are a bit trickier to use, although substitutions can easily be made in recipes that contain other liquids such as milk, yogurt, melted butter, oil, etc.) The catch? You probably won’t find sucanat in a standard grocery store. If you have a health-food store in your area, though, you’ll be sure to find some bags of sucanat on the shelves.
Rapadura is another name for non-refined sugar cane; like sucanat, it has a rich, full flavor and intoxicating scent. The form is different, though–it’s generally in cone-shaped blocks or rounds and is sold as piloncillo or panela. Chunks of it are scraped off and dropped into boiling water to make agua dulce (“sweet water”). In many Latin American countries, agua dulce is served alongside breakfast as an alternative to coffee.
So the next time you reach for sugar, reach for sucanat. You’ll never want boring white sugar again!
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Tags: baking, cookies, cornmeal, lime, mexican, natural sweetener, sucanat
Interesting blog. Had never heard of sucanat before. I will look for it. Thks