What Is It? Wednesday: Date Sugar

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What is Date Sugar? Date sugar is one of those rare sugars that is pretty much what you'd expect: ground, dried dates. Our date sugar has a small amount of oat flour added to help prevent clumping, but if you're familiar with this product, this doesn't always work. One of the most frustrating things about date sugar is it's ability to form into one solid brick. I think you could build houses with date sugar bricks. It's sweet, but not as sweet (in my opinion) as cane sugar, light tan in color, and granulated (unless it's become a brick, that is). On that note . . .

How do you soften Date Sugar? The best trick we've learned in the years of selling date sugar is to place the date sugar in the microwave for a few seconds until it begins to soften.

How do you use Date Sugar? Date sugar can replace white sugar cup for cup. If you want your baked goods to be less sweet, we recommend 2/3 cup date sugar to replace 1 cup white sugar. It works well sprinkled on cereal and baked goods, but this is not the sugar you want to sweeten your hot drinks with. It will not fully dissolve.

Does Bob's Red Mill Date Sugar contain sulfites or nitrates? No, our date sugar is simply dates and oat flour.

What kind of dates are used? Our date sugar is made from the Deglet Noor variety of dates.

Is Bob's Red Mill Date Sugar vegan? Yes, our date sugar is suitable for a vegan diet.

Is Bob's Red Mill Date Sugar gluten free? While date sugar is inherently gluten free, we do not package it in our gluten free facility or test it for gluten. Because of the nature of oats and their risk of cross contact with wheat, we do not recommend those on a strict gluten free diet use our date sugar.

Is Date Sugar suitable for diabetics? Every individual is unique and may react differently to date sugar, but generally speaking date sugar has a GI of 23 versus white sugar's GI of 80. This may be a better choice for diabetics.

Try it! This recipe for Apple Spice Muffins (pictured above) is a great jumping off point for date sugar.