Nutrition Diet: Does it matter what kind of sugar you use in baking?

November 5, 2025 •

4 min read

According to the World Health Organization, limiting daily intake of free sugars to less than 10% of total energy is key to a healthy diet. While moderation is important, it's also crucial to understand the role each type of sugar plays, which answers the question: does it matter what kind of sugar you use in baking?.

Quick Summary

Different types of sugar dramatically affect a bake's texture, moisture, flavor, and color, acting as more than just a sweetener. Granule size, moisture content, and the presence of molasses all influence the final product, from a cookie's chewiness to a cake's tenderness. Substituting sugars requires careful consideration to achieve the desired outcome.

Key Points

Texture Is King: Granulated sugar promotes crispiness, while brown sugar creates a chewy and moist texture due to its molasses content.
Moisture and Shelf Life: Brown sugar's hygroscopic nature helps baked goods stay moist and fresh for longer than those made with dry white sugar.
Speed Matters: Caster (superfine) sugar dissolves faster than granulated, making it ideal for smooth batters and meringues where quick incorporation is key.
Color and Flavor Chemistry: Sugar's caramelization and the Maillard reaction (sugar and protein) create the delicious golden-brown crust and complex flavors of baked goods.
Substitution is Not Simple: Replacing granulated sugar with liquids like honey or maple syrup requires recipe adjustments for moisture, baking temperature, and leavening to achieve a successful result.
Consider the Goal: Choosing the right sugar depends entirely on your desired outcome, whether it's a crispy cookie, a tender cake, or a smooth frosting.

The Science of Sugar in Baking

In baking, sugar is far more than a simple sweetener; it is a critical, multi-functional ingredient. Understanding these varied roles is the first step in appreciating why the choice of sugar is so important. Different sugars, with their unique chemical properties, interact with other ingredients to influence a recipe's final characteristics.

The Multifaceted Functions of Sugar

Flavor and Sweetness: While all sugars add sweetness, they contribute varying degrees of flavor complexity. Granulated white sugar offers a clean, neutral sweetness, while brown sugars and molasses add richer, caramel-like notes.
Moisture Retention: Sugar is hygroscopic, meaning it attracts and holds onto water. This property is essential for keeping baked goods soft, moist, and extending their shelf life. Brown sugar, with its molasses content, is particularly effective at retaining moisture, leading to chewy textures.
Texture and Tenderizing: Sugar interacts with gluten and starches to create the final texture. By competing with flour for water, sugar inhibits excessive gluten formation, resulting in a tender, softer crumb in cakes and muffins. The size of sugar crystals also affects texture; coarser sugar can lead to a gritty result, while finer sugar dissolves smoothly.
Leavening and Aeration: In recipes requiring creaming (like many cookies and cakes), sugar crystals cut into softened butter, creating tiny air pockets. These air pockets expand during baking, helping the baked good to rise and contributing to a lighter texture.
Browning and Crust Formation: The appealing golden-brown color and complex flavors of a crust are caused by two chemical reactions involving sugar. Caramelization occurs when sugar is heated alone, while the Maillard reaction is a result of sugar and proteins reacting together.

A Baker's Guide to Different Sugars

The most common types of sugar each have a distinct effect on baking outcomes, from flavor to texture.

Granulated and Caster Sugar

Granulated sugar is the standard, all-purpose white sugar with medium-sized crystals. It provides a clean, neutral sweetness and is highly versatile. Caster sugar, also known as superfine or baker's sugar, has much smaller crystals. Because it dissolves more quickly, it is ideal for delicate bakes like meringues and light cakes, ensuring a smoother texture without a speckled or gritty finish.

Brown Sugars

Brown sugar is essentially refined white sugar with molasses added back in. Light brown sugar has less molasses and a milder flavor, while dark brown sugar has more, giving it a deeper, more robust caramel flavor. Its moisture and acidity make it excellent for creating chewy cookies and fudgy brownies.

Powdered Sugar (Confectioners' Sugar)

This is granulated sugar that has been ground into a fine powder, typically with cornstarch added to prevent clumping. Its smooth consistency makes it perfect for icings, frostings, and glazes. When used in a dough, it produces a tender, melt-in-your-mouth result, unlike granulated sugar's crispy texture.

Raw Sugars

Turbinado and demerara sugars are less refined cane sugars with large, amber crystals and subtle molasses notes. Their coarse texture means they don't dissolve easily, making them better for decorative toppings that add a crunchy finish than for incorporating into a batter.

Liquid Sweeteners

Honey, maple syrup, and molasses are liquid sweeteners that introduce more moisture and distinct flavors. They can be used as alternatives to granulated sugar, but careful adjustments to a recipe's liquid content and baking temperature are necessary to prevent a denser, over-moist, or too-sweet result.

Comparison of Common Baking Sugars


Feature	Granulated Sugar	Light Brown Sugar	Powdered Sugar	Honey
Texture	Crystalline, fine to medium	Moist and sticky	Fine powder (contains starch)	Liquid, syrupy
Flavor	Neutral, purely sweet	Mild caramel, molasses	Neutral sweet (cornstarch taste possible)	Distinct, floral/earthy notes
Moisture	Dry	High (from molasses)	Very dry	High (water content)
Baking Effect	Crisp texture, good leavening	Chewy texture, moist result	Tender, smooth finish, no creaming	Dense, moist texture, quicker browning
Best For	Cakes, crispy cookies, general use	Chewy cookies, brownies, gingerbread	Icings, frostings, dusting, smooth doughs	Muffins, quick breads, sauces

Nutritional Considerations and Healthier Baking

When considering nutrition, it's a common myth that brown sugar is significantly healthier than white sugar. While brown sugar contains trace amounts of minerals from molasses, the quantity is so minuscule it offers no significant nutritional advantage over white sugar. The caloric difference is also negligible.

For a truly healthier bake, focus on moderation and ingredients, not just swapping white sugar for brown.

Reduce Overall Sugar: Many recipes can tolerate a 10–25% reduction in sugar without dramatically affecting the final product. For more significant reductions, functional substitutes or recipe modifications are needed.
Incorporate Natural Replacements: Unsweetened applesauce, mashed ripe bananas, and date paste can reduce the need for added sugar while adding fiber, vitamins, and minerals. These alternatives do affect moisture and flavor and require recipe adjustments.
Use Natural Sweeteners with Caution: Sweeteners like honey, maple syrup, and coconut sugar offer unique flavor profiles and minor nutrients but are still high in calories and sugar. Use them in moderation.
Explore Zero-Calorie Options: Stevia, erythritol, and monk fruit sweetener can provide sweetness without calories, but they may not mimic sugar's functional properties in baking, leading to texture and volume issues. Some, like erythritol, are heat-stable and perform well in certain bakes. Allulose is a newer option that mimics many of sugar's properties.

Conclusion

Yes, it absolutely matters what kind of sugar you use in baking. Each type of sugar offers a unique set of properties that affect a baked good's flavor, texture, moisture, and color. While the nutritional benefits of swapping from white to brown sugar are minimal, understanding these functional differences allows for greater control over your final product. For more significant nutritional impact, consider reducing the overall quantity or exploring natural, whole-food alternatives. Baking is a science, and mastering the nuances of different sugars is a crucial step towards becoming a more accomplished and creative baker.

For further reading on the science of baking with different ingredients, Serious Eats offers detailed articles and research for home cooks.

Frequently Asked Questions

While you can often swap them, brown sugar contains molasses, which adds more moisture and a richer, caramel flavor. This results in a chewier, moister product, which may not be the desired outcome for a recipe that relies on the neutral flavor and drier nature of white sugar.

The main difference is crystal size. Granulated sugar has medium crystals, while caster sugar is superfine and dissolves much faster. This makes caster sugar better for light, delicate batters like meringues, while granulated sugar can create a coarser texture.

Yes. Honey is a liquid sweetener with a distinct flavor and higher moisture content. It can make baked goods denser and moister and causes quicker browning. You will need to reduce other liquids in the recipe and possibly lower the baking temperature.

A grainy texture in frosting is often caused by undissolved granulated sugar. Powdered sugar (confectioners' sugar) is finely ground and designed to dissolve easily into liquid, creating a smooth finish. It is the best choice for frostings and icings.

No, not in any significant way. Although brown sugar contains trace amounts of minerals from molasses, the quantities are too small to offer a meaningful nutritional benefit. The caloric difference is also minimal.

Creaming creates aeration, or tiny air pockets, in the mixture as the sharp sugar crystals cut into the butter. This helps leaven the batter during baking, resulting in a lighter and fluffier texture in the final product.

Yes, you can. By blending granulated sugar in a high-speed blender or food processor until it becomes a fine powder, you can create a substitute. For commercial-grade powdered sugar, adding a tablespoon of cornstarch per cup of sugar helps prevent clumping.