Cane Sugar Cubes (Brown)

PURPOSE

WHAT IS IT?

Cane sugar, minimally processed, formed into cubes, for drinks, cocktails, baking, and more. The shape’s the thing, here, so have some fun with it!

EXPERIENCE

Minimally processed cane sugar, they have aflavor a bit sweeter than regular white sugar, thanks to a hint of molasses, which adds notes of caramel, and vanilla.

CULINARY GEOGRAPHY

 Sugarcane is any one of several species of true tall perennial seed grasses native to tropical and subtropical regions, originally of South Asia. Every cuisine in the entire world has a use for sugar in sweet and savory recipes.

TRADITIONAL USES

• Accompaniment  to teas and coffees;
• Old Fashioned, and other cocktails;
• Craquelin – Brioche with sugar cubes baked in;
• Apple pie crusted with broken sugar cubes.

A FEW IMPROVISATIONAL RIFFS:

• A fun add to a charcuterie and cheese board;
• Chili-lemon sugar stuffed scallops;
• VodkaSaz – Vodka in an absinthe-rinsed tumbler, infused with a touch of luxardo liqueur,  and a brown sugar cube infused with bitters.
• Irish brown bread with brown sugar cubes and a Guinness-caramel ribbon.

THE BACKSTORY

If you said that sugar cubes are totally “rad,” you’d be right!  We owe the sugar cube to Juliana Rad’s cut hand, and the OCD of British Victorians.

Sugar would be shipped to Europe in large blocks, or “loafs.” It would then be broken up into bits by people with knives, grinders, mallets, and other blunt instruments of culinary combat.

Mrs. Rad, the wife of Jakub Krystof Rad, the Director of a Moravian sugar company, must have given her husband an earful about cutting her hand while breaking off a bit of sugar. Rad set to work on creating sugar in uniform units. His press that created cubes was patented in 1843.

Perfect timing! The Victorian era, in England, had begun in 1837. The formalities of high tea worked their way down from upper-crust British society to the working class. How much sugar, if any, should be applied to this, or that, tea became a positive mania. The sugar cube produced a uniform, consistent result, delighting the obsessive-compulsives of the day.

HEALTH CONSIDERATIONS

 Refined sugar is one of the most addictive, and, in excess, toxic substances that we put into our bodies.

White sugar (sucrose) is associated with generating excessive fat in the body. That can turn into fatty liver disease, a leading contributor to diabetes.

Sucrose can also raise your risk for heart disease. High consumption can raise blood pressure, and increase chronic inflammation, both contribute to heart disease.

Limited use of purified sugars, and limiting overall daily intake of sugars to 150 cals/day for men, and 100 cals/day for women, is recommended.

Try healthy brown, like low-refined granulated cane (no flavor profile), palm, coconut palm, or muscovado (real dark brown sugar) instead.

MY TAKE

Brown sugar cubes are fun for a few uses, sparingly. I prefer to offer these to my sugared-tea addicts. Beanilla’s minimal processing makes their lower-refined, lower-glycemic levels very appealing.  I give it my Choicestuff® Four-Diamond rating.

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