Science: White Sugar vs Brown Sugar — What You Use Can Dramatically Change Texture in Baked Goods

Byamazingfoodstv


Buy Cook’s Science today:
The Science of Good Cooking:

Watch Test Cook Dan Souza illustrate Concept #48, ” Sugar Changes Texture (and Sweetness),” with an in-depth kitchen experiment. Hope you like cookies.

Each week, the cast of America’s Test Kitchen brings the recipes, testings, and tastings from Cook’s Illustrated magazine to life on our public television series. With more than 2 million viewers per episode, we are the most-watched cooking show on public television.

More than 1.3 million home cooks rely on Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country magazines to provide trusted recipes that work, honest ratings of equipment and supermarket ingredients, and kitchen tips.

ABOUT US: Located in Boston’s Seaport District in the historic Innovation and Design Building, America’s Test Kitchen features 15,000 square feet of kitchen space including multiple photography and video studios. It is the home of Cook’s Illustrated magazine and Cook’s Country magazine and is the workday destination for more than 60 test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes over and over again until we understand how and why they work and until we arrive at the best version.

If you like us, follow us:

source

Similar Posts

47 Comments

  2. So – banana bread and other cakes – often says add BOTH white sugar and brown sugar – so I am wondering what removing brown sugar would do in this banana bread/cake style recipe ???

    I was trying to make a low sugar/lower calorie cakes/banana breads and so wanted to use erythritol/stevia blends (NATVIA brand here in Australia) so hoping someone can shed some light on possible ramifications of using just that minus brown sugar. ??? 😍

  5. I was in high school when one of my friends gave me a container of cookies that she had baked for Christmas and she had placed a piece of sandwich bread in the container. When I asked her about the slice of bread she told me that it would help to keep the cookies soft. I've been using this trick ever since. I told my grandma about it too and she even tried putting a slice of bread in a package of red vines that had hardened and they softened right up! Grandma was so pleased with herself. So, even if your cookies are dried out, just add a soft slice of bread to the bag/container and give it some time to work and it can actually reverse and remoisten the cookies!!!

  9. This is the video I was looking for. All the other videos kept talking about what was in it, which was more healthy blah blah blah blah.
    Brown sugar = more moist baked goods
    White sugar = less so
    Thank you that was all I needed

  25. Thanks for the video!! I didn't know what a difference in the type of sugar could make.. I'm a little confused though.. would you want to make white bread with white sugar to keep it soft or will brown sugar make it soft?? I want to make my own white bread but haven't tried it yet and want to start out using the right sugar😊

  31. Dan Souza earlier video without his beard. Still looking good. But I want to know which sugar to use in which proportion to which other sugar to get the most chewy cookies. I don't think the video made that clear enough for me. Also, sugar from beets or from canes? Which is sweeter or even which is less costly to use in recipes, or are they both the same?

  34. Fascinating…Now I can better solve the dilemma of do I want a chewy or crunchy cookie!
    Question: can I use this information by looking at the ingredients list of packaged cookies to predict if the cookies will be chewy/crunchy or does bake time also play a role?

  37. Technically, shouldn't you have massed the sugar not measured by volume? I suspect a 1/4 of brown sugar is less sugar than the white. The point is still proven by this experiment, as the brown sugar still absorbed more water, but it is slightly askew data I think. Please tell me why I'm wrong if I am.

  40. Has anyone else noticed that the brown sugar here in Europe is nothing like the brown sugar in America? It's just not as sticky and behaves a lot more like white sugar with the exception of the colour…I'm trying to figure out why this is

  46. I work on a seagoing tugboat and have moved mountains of sugar around the country( 14,000 ton at a time ). Before it is processed,they treat it much like sand, bulldozers and clamshell cranes. This is before it would be called food. The difference between brown sugar and white is the amount of molasses that it put back in. And despite what the labels may say , they all come out of the dominoes mill.

Leave a Reply