[Sca-cooks] Sugar sponge

[Terry Decker]

"Candy, or Sugar-Candy, is a preparation of sugar, made by melting and
crystallizing it six or seven times over to render it hard and transparent.
It is of three kinds, white, yellow and red. The white comes from the loaf
sugar, the yellow from the cassonado, and the red from muscovado."
(Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 1771)

Muscovado sugar is sugar from the first boiling of the cane juice which has 
not been "clayed" (set into clay molds to remove the molasses).  Muscovado 
is "black sugar" and one source I encountered also refers to it as "red 
sugar."  A second source says the red sugar candy referred to in the clip 
from the Encyclopedia Brittanica above is produced by the addition of Indian 
fig juice.  Since I haven't found any corraborating sources the comments on 
red sugar and red sugar candy consider them suspect.

Demerara sugar is a further, but not fully refined, sugar still containing 
some molasses.  Turbinado is a partially refined refined raw sugar that has 
been steam cleaned (removing contaminents and more of the molasses than in 
Demerara).

While Muscavado and Demerara are place names, the etymology of turbinado is 
obscure.  I suspect, but have not been able to confirm, that Turbinado sugar 
is named for the process.

Bear