Muscovado is a type of unrefined brown sugar

Brown sugar

Brown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses. It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content, or it is produced by the addition of molasses to refined white...

 with a strong molasses

Molasses

Molasses is a viscous by-product of the processing of sugar cane, grapes or sugar beets into sugar. The word molasses comes from the Portuguese word melaço, which ultimately comes from mel, the Latin word for "honey". The quality of molasses depends on the maturity of the sugar cane or sugar beet,...

 flavor.

Also known as "Barbados

Barbados

Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...

 sugar" or "moist sugar", muscovado is very dark brown and slightly coarser and stickier than most brown sugars. Muscovado takes its flavor and color from its source, sugarcane juice

Sugarcane juice

Sugarcane juice is the juice extracted from pressed sugarcane. It is consumed as a beverage worldwide, and especially in regions where sugarcane is commercially grown such as Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Latin America....

. It offers good resistance to high temperatures and has a reasonably long shelf life. It is commonly used in baking

Baking

Baking is the technique of prolonged cooking of food by dry heat acting by convection, and not by radiation, normally in an oven, but also in hot ashes, or on hot stones. It is primarily used for the preparation of bread, cakes, pastries and pies, tarts, quiches, cookies and crackers. Such items...

 recipes and making rum

Rum

Rum is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane by-products such as molasses, or directly from sugarcane juice, by a process of fermentation and distillation. The distillate, a clear liquid, is then usually aged in oak barrels...

. Muscovado sugar can be used in most recipes where brown sugar is called for, by slightly reducing the liquid content of the recipe.

Muscovado sugar has 11 calories/ 4 grams (approx. 1 tsp). When produced under regulated conditions, it is nutritionally richer than other brown sugars or refined sugar, and retains most of the natural minerals inherent in sugarcane juice, as shown in this chart:

Mineral content of muscovado sugar (per 100 g):

• Total mineral salts 740 mg max.
• Phosphorus (P) 3.9 mg max.
• Calcium (Ca) 85 mg max.
• Magnesium (Mg) 23 mg max.
• Potassium (K) 100 mg max.
• Iron (Fe) 1.3 mg max.

This unrefined sugar goes well with coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

 and other beverages, and was one of the most prominent export commodities of the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, especially from the Negros region from the 19th century until the late 1970s. The production of muscovado sugar in the Philippines, Barbados, and elsewhere had experienced a long period of decline when large mills took over sugar production from small farmers with small mills, until consumer interest in healthy and organic foods revived interest in muscovado sugar, creating a new market for muscovado sugar production from small mills.

External links

• Whole cane sugar and dental health — a collection of scientific publications
• Vše o muskovadu (All About Muscovado)Big Sugar Sweet, White, and Deadly, CBC, 90 minut