5000 sugar types are doing my head in

Ok I know it's probably been addressed before, but what is up with the UK obsession with 5000 different types of sugar???  I mean here we have: Light Brown Sugar, Dark Brown Sugar, Demerara, Muscovado, Caster, Granulated and Icing Sugar to name the ones I'm familiar with as a chef.  And then there's the whole treacle thing, which doesn't seem to be exactly molasses, as my tin states "made from molasses" so what exactly is it?  What is the point of having granulated sugar if almost 100% of the recipes I use call for caster?  I seem to remember in the States you had 4 types, light brown, dark brown, granulated sugar and varying degrees of powdered sugar.  Easy enough right?  Oh and on the subject of sweetners, how hard is it to find corn syrup!  I mean the crystal clear stuff, not the dark Karo syrup that's equivalent to Golden Syrup.  Ok, this is doing my head in so it's off to work where no doubt I'll use all 5000 types to make some sort of dessert for the menu :-)

One of the things I love about the UK is that it's different from the US.... There are loads of different sugar types on sale in the US too, maybe you didn't notice them? e.g. (very small selection):

White Sugar: Cane or Beet

    Baker's Special
    Decorating Sugar
    Confectioners AA
    Evaporated Cane Juice Crystals
    Fine Granulated
    Powdered Sugar (6x, 10x, 12x)
    Powdered Sugar (Organic/IP GMO Free)
    Sanding Sugar
    Velvet Brand



Brown Sugar: Cane or Beet

    Brown Sugar (Light/Medium/Dark)
    Brown Sugar (Organic)
    Brownulated Granulated
    C&H Golden C / Yellow D
    Demerara Sugar (Natural)
    Evaporated Cane Juice Crystals
    Qwik Flo Honey Granules
    Qwik Flo Molasses Granules
    Turbinado Sugar

What is the point of having granulated sugar if almost 100% of the recipes I use call for caster?

We never buy granulated. I think a lot of people use it in coffee and tea (i.e., not for baking), but we just use caster for everything.

We never buy granulated. I think a lot of people use it in coffee and tea (i.e., not for baking), but we just use caster for everything.

Yes....granulated is what people use to sweeten drinks or put on their cereal.

I use granulated for making cookies.  I have used both and don't see a difference between the two really.  Depending on the recipe of course.

I generally use 4 different types of sugar:

- Granulated sugar on cereal and in tea/coffee, plus some of my recipes do call for granulated sugar (such as my Scottish tablet and chocolate Easter nests recipes), so I sometimes use it in cooking too.

- Caster sugar for baking and to put on fruit (such as strawberries and raspberries).

- Soft brown sugar on porridge and for any recipes that call for it

- Icing sugar for baking (making icing for cakes and biscuits)

I know my parents have Muscovado sugar and Dark Brown Sugar in their cupboards as well as the 4 types above, but I don't think they use them very often (just in the odd recipe that calls for them).

Granulated - goes in tea, on DH's cereal sometimes & he uses it sometimes for some of the baking he does.

Caster - what I use mostly for baking.

Demerera - goes in coffee.

Icing sugar - for frosting/icing & dusting baked goods, etc.

Brown sugar - sometimes we have the light brown, sometimes the dark brown, sometimes both...depends on the recipe.

We also usually have both honey & treacle in the house as well.

And Hermesetas (not sugar!) for my coffee & tea.

I used dark brown sugar and black treacle in the parkin cookies I made yesterday 

I would have thought that, with you being a chef, and presumably knowing that different recipes call for different types/levels/flavours of sweetness, you'd appreciate having all the different types of sugar!

I would have thought that, with you being a chef, and presumably knowing that different recipes call for different types/levels/flavours of sweetness, you'd appreciate having all the different types of sugar!

Do they use sugar in MacDonalds? (only joking!)

Haha, I'm not sure if they use sugar at McDonald's...but at our restaurant that's been mentioned in the Michelin Guide we sure do ;-) 

I would have thought that, with you being a chef, and presumably knowing that different recipes call for different types/levels/flavours of sweetness, you'd appreciate having all the different types of sugar!

Yes, I appreciate all the different types, however it sometimes does my head in when trying to convert recipes from the US and I find that I have to make a specific trip to the shop for ONE thing!  Used to seem that when baking in the States it was one of three types: white, light brown or dark brown.  Easy peasy!  Not so here!

Do they use sugar in MacDonalds? (only joking!)

MacDonalds? lol McDonalds even though everyone calls it Mac

MacDonalds? lol McDonalds even though everyone calls it Mac

I did actually pause for a second before typing to think about which spelling to use, and chose the wrong one. You'd think Google never happened.

So, what exactly *is* treacle? Syrup of some sort, that part I know... but made of? We bought some of that Golden Syrup in the tin to use for French toast. (Well, I use it. He puts HP sauce on his!  )

So, what exactly *is* treacle? Syrup of some sort, that part I know... but made of? We bought some of that Golden Syrup in the tin to use for French toast. (Well, I use it. He puts HP sauce on his!  )

I always thought treacle was the same as black molasses. Not something you'd put on pancakes!

According to this site, treacle is the concentrated byproduct from processing sugar from sugarcane.