The trick for extra delicious bakes

Caramel flavor in your cake, cookies, or meringue? Roast your sugar and give your bakes even more flavor.

By roasting the sugar very slowly at a low temperature in a glass baking dish, you prevent it from either burning or becoming liquid and caramelizing. Glass conducts heat slowly, so this method gives you beautifully evenly roasted sugar.

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How it works

Because of the low temperature during heating, the structure of the sugar does not change, only the flavor. This means you can use it in baked goods just as you would regular granulated sugar.

Roasting in glass or ceramic allows the sugar to brown very gradually and evenly. Stirring it occasionally prevents spots from forming where the sugar nevertheless starts to clump or become liquid. At the same time, moisture is allowed to escape, which is exactly what you want for roasting.

How to do it

The great thing is that you only need one ingredient for this recipe: 1.8 kg granulated sugar. Preheat the oven to 150°C and make sure your dish of sugar can be placed in the center of the oven.

Put all the sugar in a glass or ceramic baking dish and spread it into an even layer of about half a centimeter. Place the dish in the center of the oven and stir the sugar once every half hour so the moisture can escape and the sugar browns evenly.

Would you rather have caramel? Then simply make crema catalana.

Keep a close eye on the color of the sugar; after five to six hours, it should be light brown. Remove the dish from the oven and let it cool. Be careful: the sugar is extremely hot, so it really must cool completely.

Once it has cooled, you will notice that the sugar has clumped together in places. No need to panic—simply pulverize it in the blender, and your caramel granulated sugar is good to go. Store and use it just like regular granulated sugar.

How to use it

The roasted sugar is considerably less sweet, has a deeper and more complex flavor, and really does taste quite a bit like caramel. It is therefore delicious as a one-to-one substitute for regular granulated sugar.

A very good recipe to use roasted sugar in is angel food cake. This cake consists largely of egg whites and sugar. So replace the sugar one-to-one with roasted sugar, and your angel cake will suddenly have a much more intense flavor.