Sugar and Spice(s) - A Short Guide to Flavoured Sugars

Oct 08, 2024

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Ciambelline al Vino - Italian White Wine Cookies with Anise Sugar

Brian Levy’s recipe for Apple Spice Shortbread (which went straight to my list of things to bake this fall) reminded me of just how much I adore a spiced sugar as a special finishing touch for baked goods. As you will already know if you have been following me for a while, I’m all for making baked goods and desserts taste that little bit more interesting. And there are of course many ways of doing that - be it by playing around with different flavours used directly in whatever I am making (bonus points if I can use pantry staples like orange blossom water, toasted sesame seed oil or dried spices and spice mixes like Chinese five spice powder for this), or adding a finishing touch with an interesting twist like a nice glaze (e.g. with maybe some olive oil, sumac or kinako) for example, or dusting whatever I just made with sugar. Because we all know how difficult it is to resist a sugar-dusted jam doughnut, the sugar adding not just sweetness and crunch but also stickiness to the otherwise rich yet plain doughnut dough, making it truly irresistible.

What is even more fun than dusting baked or fried things with plain sugar, is using flavoured sugars to do the same thing. This can be done to amplify a flavour (like in the case of the Italian Ciambelline al Vino pictured above where anise seed is used both in the cookie dough but also in the sugar used to roll the cookies in) or to introduce an additional flavour (like in the case of the Banana Fritters pictured below which, once fried, are rolled in a garam masala spiced sugar mix). So today I wanted to share some ideas with you for different flavoured sugars, how to prepare them and how to use them.

Single spices, dried herbs and spice mixes: When it comes to single spices or spice mixes, the options are in some ways as limited or unlimited as the contents of your spice drawer! So depending on what spices you stock, you could try the following:

A sumac or hibiscus sugar for a sherbet like tang - which could be a delicious contrast to something fried, like churros or plain doughnuts;
A tonka bean sugar in places where you might otherwise use vanilla sugar and anything made with slightly tart fruits like rhubarb, raspberries or apricots;
A cardamom, coriander, cloves or anise seed sugar for anything made with citrus fruits;
A fennel sugar for anything made with strawberries or stone fruits for example:
Pumpkin spice, gingerbread spice, pain d’epices, four spice mix or Lebkuchen-spice sugars would all work beautifully with anything involving root vegetables or tubers, chocolate and fruits like plums and cherries. But beyond that I also love using Chinese five spice mix, or ras el hanout for similar dishes,
A lavender or other floral sugar made with dried petals (e.g. lavender, rose, osmanthus, orange blossom etc).

Rule of thumb: use around 1 tsp ground spice per 100g sugar.

Chocolate Snickerdoodles with Garam Masala Sugar

Fresh herbs: When it comes to fresh herbs, basil, mint, verveine and tarragon for example are all great to use with fresh fruits or to scatter over things like panna cotta or mousse to add some crunch and extra flavour. E.g. a tarragon sugar would work beautifully alongside some poached rhubarb and pannacotta. And a basil sugar would be amazing with some fresh loquats or cantaloupe melon. Note that these won’t keep very long so are best made fresh and used very quickly. If you have some kaffir lime leaves to hand, try pulsing a couple of leaves with some sugar and maybe scatter over a rice pudding made with coconut milk and a pinch of salt for something a little different.

Rule of thumb: When it comes to things like fresh herbs you have to play around a little bit – different types of herbs will vary in intensity, so best so start with a few leaves and pulse them together with part of the sugar in a food processor (so you don’t turn it all into powdered sugar) and then adjust by adding more leaves if necessary to increase the intensity of the flavour.

French Toast with Umeboshi Plum Compote and Miso Sugar

Some other ideas:

You could try a sweet version of Japanese Gomasio, where toasted sesame seeds are ground with salt and instead use a mix of sugar and ground sesame seeds which I could imagine working well with silken tofu and syrupy candied kumquats as an unusual but simple and not overly sweet dessert with a slight nod to Tau Foo Fah (a Chinese Tofu Custard my friend Michelle introduced me to). And you could of course do the same with different nuts and seeds - toasted peanut sugar and toasted pistachio sugar both sound great!

You could also try making flavoured sugars using freeze dried fruits like in Brian Levy’s shortbread recipe - I imagine that an apple chip flavoured sugar would be delicious if scattered over apple fritters for example! Or you could take inspiration from Peach Melba and make some freeze dried raspberry sugar to scatter over peach fritters.

What I used to do years ago when cupcakes were still really popular is to make a vanilla sugar with a bit of sea salt and scatter a little bit of that over the swirl of cream cheese frosting adorning the cupcakes.

If, like me, you have a small jar of powdered liquorice languishing at the back of your pantry you could also use that to make a liquorice sugar, for example to roll chocolate snickerdoodles in.

Or you could try making one of my favourite flavoured sugars: Miso Sugar - see below for the recipe.

How to make flavoured sugars

How to make flavoured sugars depends on your flavouring agent:

Vanilla sugar: simply bury a spent vanilla pod in a jar of sugar (and you can continue adding more spent vanilla beans). You could do the same to make coffee bean flavoured sugar. The flavour will take a bit of time to develop but will become more intense as time goes on;

Dried spices: I like toasting dried spices first for a stronger flavour. I then grind them finely and whisk together with the sugar and it will be ready to use immediately;

Citrus zest / fresh herbs: Here you are largely relying on the aromatic oils in the zest or the herbs to flavour the sugar. For maximum flavour extraction it helps to really rub the sugar together with the citrus zest or the fresh herbs using your hands. The resulting sugar will likely be somewhat wet with a consistency like wet sand. If not using straight away, spread out on a large plate or baking tray to dry out. Once dry you can also pulse the sugar a few times in a food processor to pulverise any larger pieces of zest or herbs remaining.

How to use flavoured sugars

And if you are wondering how best to use all these delicious flavoured sugars you have just mixed up in your kitchen, here are some ideas to get you started:

Anything deep-fried and typically rolled in plain sugar or covered in a simple glaze will work great with flavoured sugars - from churros, to doughnuts to apple fritters, beignets etc;
There are a myriad of different kinds of cookies that are often rolled in sugar just before or after baking - from Vanillekipferl to Snickerdoodles to Polverones (yes, you could even make flavoured powdered sugar). Note if you roll baked cookies in sugar after baking, do it right after they come out of the oven - the steam coming off the freshly baked cookies will help the sugar adhere;
There are also plenty of pastries that are brushed with butter and rolled in sugar after baking, e.g. French Gibassiers;
Use it to scatter over your porridge or rice pudding;
Use your flavoured sugar to add some intrigue to your pancakes, French toast etc;
Use it for a twist on Cinnamon Toast;
Use flavoured sugar to stir into your coffee or hot chocolate - this will be particularly good with a flavoured sugar made with a spice mix like Chinese five spice sugar;
You could also use your flavoured sugar like regular sugar and use it to sweeten cream before whipping.

And while I shall resist to use the C word for as long as I manage, suffice to say that a festively decorated jar of flavoured sugar also makes for a sweet little gift.

Have you played around with flavoured sugar before? If so, what is your favourite flavoured sugar and how do you use it? Let me know in the comments below.

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