I am the coordinator for my area for Bread Beckers Co-op. We compile our orders to save on the shipping of grains, beans, honey and a host of other items. Quarterly orders are shipped to me where I commandeer the garage organizing individual orders to be picked up by the co-op members. All those white buckets of wheat and beans, wow, you should see the huge 50 pound bags!! Last quarter a 50 pound bag of sucanat was mistakingly left with us and we decided to buy it for ourselves. I'm not all together familiar with cooking with the sweetener so I need to get with it and learn!!
We filled one and a half six gallon buckets for easier access and safer storage.
Okay - so here's where we started...
I was making some of my annual Spiced Nuts for Christmas goodie-giving and didn't realize that I had very little sugar. But wait!!! I have FIFTY POUNDS of sucanat!!! I wasn't sure if the sugar could be replaced but if it could... oh, the possibilities!
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SPICED NUTS
1/2c sugar (or sucanat)
1/2t salt
1t cinnamon
1/4t ground cloves
1/4t nutmeg
2T water
1/2c walnuts
1/2c pecans
Butter cookie sheet. Combine sugar with spices and water in small pan. Cook, stirring constantly until mixture forms soft ball when dropped in cold water. Stir in nuts. Remove from heat. Stir until no longer glossy. Spread thinly on cookie sheet and allow to cool completely. Store in air tight container.
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I had enough white sugar to do a normal batch. Then I got out the sucanat and replaced the sugar. I was a little concerned that the heat of getting it to the soft ball stage might go wrong and it was beginning to look a little darker than the sugar batch. So I took it off the heat a little sooner than usual and finished up the steps.
The top pan below is the sucanat batch and the bottom one is the sugar batch. Can you see a slight color difference? It tastes the same to me. And my husband agreed. So, how about that?
