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Demerara
Sugar
A coarse crystalline sugar with an amber appearance and mellow flavour.
What are the applications of demerara sugar?
Demerara sugar is traditionally used in baking. Its coarse grain enables it to develop crunchy toppings and it is used to increase the spread in biscuits, cookies, cakes, breakfast cereals and bars. Particularly popular applications include shortbreads, flapjacks and crumbles.
Demerara sugar is also used as a table sugar because its mellow notes perfectly complement coffee’s bitter flavour while its coarse texture makes it ideal for sprinkling over porridge, fruit and desserts. For the latter reason, it is also an ingredient in dark spirit cocktails, most notably the mojito.
It can be used to produce some preserves as well.
Tasting notes
Demerara sugar has a light brown, amber colour and a mellow flavour.
It is a natural sugar product that undergoes minimal processing and, as a result, retains natural molasses. Due to this, demerara sugar contains the following vitamins and minerals:
- Calcium
- Magnesium
- Iron
- Vitamin B6
- Manganese
- Zinc
- Cobalt
- Chromium
Storage and packaging
Storage temperature
15 – 20⁰C, dry conditions and away from direct sunlight
Shelf life
In excess of 18 months if left unopened
Packaging and storage options
Demerara sugar is stored in 25kg paper sacks, which are then stacked five by eight into 1000kg palettes for safe storage and transportation. It is also stored and distributed in 1000kg flexible intermediate bulk containers (FIBCs).
Properties
| Description | Approx. (on sample) |
|---|---|
| Sucrose | 98.0 – 99.2% |
| Invert sugar | 0.25 – 0.40% |
| Ash | 0.30 – 0.35% |
| Moisture | 0.2 – 0.3% |
| Sulphur dioxide | <9ppm |
How is demerara sugar produced?
Demerara sugar can only be produced from sugar cane.
The first step in its process is when sugar cane stalks are harvested, cut, cleaned and crushed to extract their natural juice. Once extracted, the juice is cleaned and then purified before it is boiled under vacuum, which evaporates the natural water and leaves a thick, sweet, amber juice.
The juice is then seeded with sugar crystals to encourage the solution to grow into a super-saturated massecuite syrup. During this process, molasses develops, and the retention of some of this molasses is what gives demerara sugar its trademark colour, smell and flavour.
This massecuite syrup is then spun in a centrifugal machine to separate the sugar crystals from the majority of the molasses. Once fully centrifuged, the now large and coarse sugar crystals are dried, cooled, screened, sieved and bagged. They then go through thorough quality control testing and are ready to be shipped.
Upon arrival at Ragus’ production facility, demerara sugar undergoes further quality procedures such as screening, drying and metal detection to remove any impurities. Once these steps have been completed, it can be packaged and distributed to customers.
Food safety
Ragus adopts British Retail Consortium (BRC) standard procedures and carries out a HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) process of screening, drying, metal detection using inline rare earth magnets and final metal detection.
