You've got to hand it to whoever’s in charge of the coconut complex: Judging by today’s supermarket shelves, they’re using the whole damn tree. Water, oil, and flour come from the nut and its meat. But wait! Have you tried coconut sugar? It’s derived from the nectar secreted by the palm flower, which is then boiled and ground. (So easy! So bountiful!) If you told me that next I’d be sprinkling the husk or the bark onto something, I’d totally believe you. And I’d eat it, too.
Coconut sugar has been gaining visibility in the last year, as people seek an alternative to alternative sweeteners like agave and honey. While studies say its glycemic index isn’t as low as was originally touted (it still contains fructose), it is less refined than the white stuff, which means that, in addition to containing more fiber and nutrients, it won’t jack you around like a parking-lot roller coaster. Oh, and hey: It tastes good, too. Not coconutty at all. Do you like brown sugar? Then follow us.
I first spotted coconut sugar in my friend Anya Fernald’s pantry in Berkeley, CA. When not running the sustainable meat company Belcampo Inc., she is baking delicious, not-unindulgent things for her kids that contain zero white flour or cane sugar. (So what if there’s still a ton of butter and/or olive oil? Those cows are happy.) Late one morning, after we’d cleaned up the whole-grain pancake and assorted breakfast meats situation, she asked me to make the almond torta from her cookbook, “Home Cooked,” while she ran an errand. I’d become hooked on the dense, nutty, barely sweet cake when it was served for breakfast and snack at Belcampo’s Meat Camp way north in Shasta. She’d since tweaked the recipe to incorporate the shelf of gluten-free flours and alternative sugars in her pantry (sigh: pantry), so I found myself using coconut sugar—100% cup for cup. I loved the rounded, caramel-y sweetness that it gave the cake and immediately dumped some into the tea I was drinking with it.
Back in New York, I picked up both Nutiva and Trader Joe’s coconut sugars (I prefer the former, though it’s a close tie; TJ’s, obviously, wins on price) and started playing with them. April Bloomfield’s zucchini bread recipe benefits from the brown sugar/molasses quality, so I went from doing 50% coconut sugar to 100% from one loaf to the next. I started my annual batch of rhubarb-orange compote using 50% coconut sugar, then ended up tossing in another 1/3 cup at the end for more depth. I use it in chai and horchata, sprinkle it on oatmeal, and stir it into my homemade granola in place of maple syrup. I love it in these coconut-date power breakfast bars, use it in place of brown sugar in chocolate chip cookies and GF chocolate-tahini brownies, and am working up to trying it in ice cream and kombucha—though maybe not at the same time.
I recently found myself back in the Bon Appétit offices for a week, so I asked test kitchen maestro Chris Morocco what he’d learned from cooking with it a few months back for this story. He told me that it swaps perfectly for white sugar, and while he wouldn’t use it to make a caramel because it’s not, like, real sugar, he liked it in the brittle he developed for a citrus crumble with coconut and nuts. And because it’s not crystallized like cane sugar, it transforms into a simple syrup quickly when shaken in a jar. How good would that be with rum, tequila, or bourbon in a cocktail? Does that count as healthyish?