Sweeteners
 Brown Sugar
These days brown sugar is one of the most popular sweeteners for cookies and is made by adding molasses to granulated sugar. Many years ago brown sugar was a less refined form of granulated sugar.
There are two types, Light and Dark brown sugar. Dark brown sugar has about twice the amount of molasses in it and has a more pronounced molasses flavor. It usually doesn't make a difference which one you use. Occasionally a recipe will call for a specific kind due to a desired color or flavor.
Brown sugar should be kept in an air tight container since it will turn hard as a rock when exposed to air for a long time.
If you have some hard brown sugar, you can loosen it up by putting it in a microwave safe bowl, sprinkling it with a small amount of water and microwaving it for 30 seconds.
Granulated Sugar
This is the most common of the sugars in baking. It is derived from sugarcane or sugarbeets.
Coarse Sugar
This sugar has much larger crystals than granulated sugar. It is also known as crystal sugar and is available in most baking stores.
Confectioner's Sugar
Confectioner's Sugar is also known as powdered sugar. It is granulated sugar that has been ground into a powder and has some cornstarch added to help prevent caking. It is used mostly for icings and glazes.
Turbinado Sugar
This sugar is sold under the name " Sugar in the Raw" and is great for sprinkling on cookies before they bake.
Honey
We all know what honey is. Its flavor is determined by the flower that the honey bees were feeding on. Honey is a good sweetener for softer textured cookies and cookie bars because it retains moisture. Baked goods made with honey will get even softer during storage. In most recipes honey can be substituted in equal amounts, but reduce the amount of liquid in the recipe by 1/4 cup for each cup of honey used.
Molasses
Molasses is a by product of the refining process of cane sugar. There are three grades. Light, Dark and Blackstrap. The term unsulphered means that sulpher was not used in the refining process. For the recipes on this site you should use unsulphered light or dark molasses.
Splenda
A relatively new sweetener has come on the market called Splenda.
SPLENDA® Granulated works best in recipes where sugar is used primarily to sweeten the recipe. We plan to add Splenda conversions to all of our recipes in the future.
Click here to go to Splenda's Conversion Chart for more information.
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