Cane Sugar Cubes (White)

PURPOSE

WHAT IS IT?

A simple white table sugar for cooking, baking, and cocktail-making. This pure cane sugar has been purified, so it lacks the fiber “off” switch that lower glycemic sugars, better for you. Beanilla buys a minimally processed cane sugar, which isn’t as highly refined as other brands.

EXPERIENCE

A classic white sugar, this is neutral in flavor, allowing the other flavors, within your recipe, to only be aided by the sweetness.

CULINARY GEOGRAPHY

Cane sugar comes from… Bueller… anybody… Bueller? Sugarcane: One of several species of true tall perennial seed grasses, native to tropical and subtropical regions, originally in South Asia, but now grown in any warm, tropical clime.

TRADITIONAL USES

• Tea;
• Sazerac (Cocktail);
• Easter Bread with Sugar Cubes;
• Sugar Cube Scones.

A FEW IMPROVISATIONAL RIFFS:

• Blood orange champagne royale;
• Callas crunch – rice cakes with cinnamon and sugar cube bits;
• Coated with soy powder and dry seasonings for a “teriyaki” cube topping a wagyu tartar;
• Rolled in cocoa, chile, and jalapeño powder, then stuck into a pad of butter atop a nice filet for a little spicy sweet topper, when broiled.

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

I primarily use white sugar cubes in cocktails. Their look, and neutral taste, are important here. Otherwise, I would recommend better sugars. Beanilla’s is less refined, so it gets my four diamond Choicestuff™ ranking.