Beet or Cane?

One of the questions I set myself to answer when I started my sugar odyssey was is there really any difference between sugar made from cane, and sugar made from beet.  Frankly I had never considered this question before. To be honest I regarded sugar very much as a commodity and bought it entirely on price, although I did know that in Britain the market is pretty much a duopoly between Tate & Lyle which produces only cane sugar, and British Sugar which exclusively processes domestically grown sugar beet.   These two brands take over 90% of the UK market.

Sugar beet plants

Looking around the world.

Beet sugar has a hugely dominant market position in much of Europe, including France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria all of which have internationally renowned reputations for patisserie or other confectionary products.

In the USA the market has changed in recent decades.  Sugar cane has gone from a dominant market position to hold only about 40% to 45% of the market while sugar beet has 55% to 60%.  American Sugar Refining of Yonkers NY is the biggest cane producer with brands that include Domino, California & Hawaii (C&H), Florida Crystals and Redpath.  Crystal Sugar based in Minnesota is the largest beet producer.

In Canada Lantic produces about 10% of the country’s sugar from sugar beet in Alberta, but overall the market is 90% cane sugar divided between Redpath and Lantic.

Australia is a big cane sugar producer and exporter.  The CSR brand has approximately 60% market share in Oz and 80% in New Zealand.

Elsewhere it seems that countries are more or less divided by climate.  Sugar cane cannot survive in temperate zones and beet does not do well in hot climates.  Yet globally sugar beet has 30% to 35% market share.

Claims

However, a quick trawl of the web casts up a litany of accusations aimed at beet sugar and clearly in some people’s minds sugar cane is real sugar, and sugar made from beet is some sort of synthetic imposter.

Claims include:

·         Beet sugar doesn’t set jams. “That’s why people in Europe or North America need to use pectin.”

·         Beet sugar cannot be used in fine baking.  One contributor claimed to have “done several recipes both ways and the beet are tough and mealy”.

·         Martha Stewart, allegedly tested cane vs. beet sugar in various trials and “didn't notice a discernable difference except in fine baking, especially cakes.”

·         Several people claim that beet sugar smells.  One describes the smell as “like old tobacco smoke”.

·         Beet sugar doesn’t caramelise like cane sugar, while cane sugar turns golden-brown under a blow torch, beet sugar almost immediately turns black.

Now one difference I am aware of is in brown sugar. Brown sugar made from cane is partially refined to leave a greater or lesser amount of molasses in the sugar.  Molasses derived from sugar beet is not considered palatable to humans so brown sugars made from beet sugar are normally refined white sugar that has been ‘painted’ with molasses from sugar cane. The painting process coats the granules but does not necessarily penetrate them, and supposedly it can be rubbed off in certain situations as the grains grind against each other.

When it comes to refined white sugar however, this is almost entirely pure sucrose whatever the source.  EU regulations specify that it be 99.7% pure which means any variation in taste or behaviour would have to be caused by something in the remaining 0.3%.  I am bound to say I was skeptical, but let’s consider the claims one by one.

Well the first one I know is false.  I have used both beet and cane sugar to make preserves with equal results.  Recipes usually stipulate added pectin (or more often pectin rich fruits such as lemons or apples) to be added whenever the main fruit is lacking in pectin, such as strawberries, apricots or cherries.

Berlin's Cafe Opera

Does beet sugar produce tough and mealy cakes?  Again I have used beet sugar for years, as did my mother, and never had any complaints.  Anyone who has ever drooled over the cakes in a German kaffeekonditorei, or eaten a delicious Sacher Tort in Vienna will know this to be false.  Those countries use almost exclusively beet sugar.

I couldn’t find the Martha Stewart experiments so will have to defer judgement on that one.

I have spent several minutes with my nose stuck inside various bags of sugar and I can’t tell any difference at all in the smell.  All of them are pretty much odour free.  Neither can I discern any difference by a simple taste test.  I also employed some younger noses than mine, and they were similarly unable to detect any difference.  However it seems this claim may have a foundation in reality.

Harold McGee, the great food writer, says claims about smell “may be an undeserved legacy of the early 20th century, when refining techniques weren't as effective". He attributes the smell to poor storage during which bacteria and mold can grow on the beets and contribute off-flavors”.  Sugar cane by contrast doesn’t keep and so it is always processed immediately after cutting.  Whatever the cause this problem seems now to have been solved.

The last claim about caramelisation intrigued me, so the only thing to do was to conduct my own experiment.  I made Crème Brûlée  and set them in individual ramekins to allow me to vary the sugar topping.  On one I used a measured quantity of Tate & Lyle Granulated sugar (pure cane) and on the next one I used an identical quantity of British Sugar’s Silver Spoon Granulated sugar (pure beet).  On a third batch I used Silver Spoon Caster sugar just because I had it available.  I normally use a blow torch to caramelise crème brulee, but on this occasion I decided the grill would allow me to get a consistent duration and heat and avoid any unconscious manipulation by me.  The results were as follows.

Crème Brûlée , L to R Caster / Beet / Cane

The Silver Spoon Granulated took longer to caramelize and there was a small amount of unmelted sugar even though this ramekin was in the centre of the grill.  The other two caramelized completely and both had patches of black and gold, but the Tate & Lyle retained a glossy sheen while the caster sugar took on a kind of egg-shell finish.  They all tasted delicious although there was a clear order of preference amongst my panel with the cane sugar coming top and the caster sugar coming third.  The caster sugar gave a finer crust but this was felt to lack bite.

So in conclusion, I could discern no real difference between cane and beet with the possible exception of the crème brulee test.  On that evidence I probably would chose cane sugar in future when making caramel but I certainly would not be deterred if I could only buy beet sugar.

Recipe

I have been criticised for not including more recipes in this blog, so my recipe for crème brulee is included below.  Crème Brûlée uses 5 egg yolks and so obviously I had 5 egg whites left over, as well as a lot of sugar!  So I made a Pavlova too, and took the opportunity to enjoy a few more of this year’s marvelous summer fruits.  That recipe is included as well.

Crème Brûlée

450ml / 16fl oz double cream
50ml / 2fl oz milk
A few drops of vanilla extract
5 large eggs
75g / 2½ oz caster sugar, plus more for topping

Method

1.       Heat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas Mark 2

2.       Put the cream, milk and vanilla in a heavy saucepan and bring to a simmer

3.       Separate the eggs and blend the yolks only with the sugar to form a paste

4.       Just before the cream boils, take it off the heat and pour it quickly into the egg mixture stirring briskly to prevent it from cooking.

5.       When all the sugar is dissolved ladle the mixture into ramekins or if you prefer, one large oven proof dish.

6.       Place the Crème Brûlée  dishes in a deep baking tray and fill the tray with hot water until it comes half way up the outside of the dishes.  Then place in the centre of the oven.

7.       Cook until the Crème Brûlée  is set but still wobbles when shaken. In my oven this takes about 45 minutes.

8.       Allow the Crème Brûlée  to cool.  (In fact you can refrigerate them at this point and serve them later)

9.       Just before serving, sprinkle sugar moderately over the surface, about half a teaspoon to each ramekin. Then caramelize the sugar to form a thick crunchy topping.  British cookers come with an overhead grill. If you use this set the grill as high as it will go, they only take a minute or so.  Elsewhere you will need to invest in a blowtorch, available in good cookery shops.

Crema Catalana dish

The best dishes to use are wide, shallow, teracotta dishes from Spain traditionally used for the Catalan version of this dish.  They look attractive and give a large surface area so you get lots of delicious caramel in each serving.

Pavlova

4 egg whites
225g / 8 oz caster sugar (make the Pavlova bigger or smaller by using more or fewer eggs. Just use 2oz sugar for each egg you use!)
1 tsp cornflour
1 tsp white wine vinegar
284ml / 10fl oz double cream
450g / 1lb fresh fruit (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc.)
Icing sugar for dusting

Method

1.       Heat the oven to 160c /325F / Gas mark 4

2.       Line a baking sheet with parchment and oil it lightly

3.       Whisk the egg whites until they form shiny peaks.

4.       Add the sugar a little at a time until it’s all incorporated and then continue whisking until the meringue is stiff and glossy.

5.       Add the cornflour and vinegar

6.       Spoon the mixture onto the parchment and spread with a knife to make a circle about 20cm/8inches wide.

7.       Put in the centre of the oven and immediately lower the temperature to 110c / 225F / Gas mark ½ and cook for 1½ hours.  At the end of the cooking time turn the oven off and leave the meringue in the oven to cool.

8.       When completely cold remove the parchment and place on a serving plate (don’t worry of it cracks). Spread the whipped cream over the meringue then simply bundle the fruit over the top. Finally dust with a little icing sugar.



Strawberry and Raspberry Pavlova

The meringue should be crisp on top and soft and light on the inside.  This dessert was created in the 1920s in honour of the famous Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova, during one of her tours down-under.  However the exact provenance is hotly contested by both Australia and New Zealand.