Flavored Sugar

From StoneHome

Many flavors would be wonderful if they could be imparted into delicate foods without their traditional carrying media. One good way to carry some of those flavors is by flavoring the sugar, but it takes quite a bit of time.

The traditional example, a very popular way to make whipped cream, is with vanillaed sugar. Fill a mason jar or other sealing jar with sugar, with about a dozen vanilla beans scattered throughout. Leave in a cabinet for at least three months and potentially indefinately; over time the flavor of the beans will transfer into the sugar. This is easily done with dried bean flavors like vanilla, chocolate and coffee, as well as fibrous dried plants like cinnamon, cloves or anise, and with fruit with dry rinds like most citrus: just throw things in and forget them.

The way to do this with wet fruit like strawberries and peaches isn't obvious, but it's still relatively easy: get a food dehydrator, and partially dehydrate the food. Leave a little bit of water; that will act as a flavor exchange accelerator. Multiple fruits may be mixed here to good effect, but thin flavors like bananas and most melons don't carry nearly was well as strong flavors like raspberry and cranberry.

The way to do this with a liquid is even less obvious. Remove a small amount of the sugar. Add the liquid, such as honey or liquor, and add sugar until the mass is relatively dry; allow the sugar to wholly dry. Crush the contaminated sugar, possibly employing a mortar and pestle to get an even grain; mix into the clean sugar and allow to sit. The effectiveness of this technique is heavily dependant on allowing the contaminated sugar to dry wholly and grinding the resulting crystals to at least the size of the granulated sugar.

With aromatics like herbs and tea, simply take a few teabags, cut a corner, refill with the desired aromatics, re-seal and place inside a tea egg. Place the tea egg in the center of the sugar. Mix the sugar thoroughly before any use, and re-center the tea egg afterwards; because there are so many fewer positions from which the flavor eminates, this takes at least twice as long as the other methods.