Muscovado Sugar

Muscovado sugar is another so-called “raw” sugar that’s made not at a refinery but the original sugar mill. As opposed to lighter “turbinado” and Demerara sugar, muscovado has quite small crystals. It’s a product of later crystallizations — the second or even the third — which means the molasses that coats it is much thicker and darker. It’s also usually air-dried instead of being spun in a centrifuge.

In many ways muscovado is similar to a refinery brown sugar (though the muscovado pictured above isn’t especially dark as these sugars go). It’s soft and strong tasting with all the deep caramel, mineral and acetic acid vinegar-like notes. However like other raw sugars it retains some of the brighter vegetable or grass-like flavors that refinery brown sugars don’t have. It can be used in any application that calls for brown sugar.

Oh, and the name comes from an arcane Spanish word meaning “separated out” or “reduced” (makes sense when you consider how crystal sugar is made). Muscovado also goes by the name of “Barbados” sugar (where a similar product was originally made) and also “moist” or “molasses” sugar.

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