Dates and Date Sugar

Dates are simply the fruit of various varieties of palm trees. Date sugar is made by simply dehydrating dates and grinding them up into a rather coarse, granulated-type sugar. It contains fiber and nutrients, just as fresh dates do. Although it will not dissolve very well in your cup of coffee, it works very well, substituted cup-for-cup, in any baked-goods recipe that calls for brown sugar.

Dates are 50 to 70 percent sugar by weight. The supersweet Deglet Noor variety contains the same sucrose as sugar cane. The Halawy, Zahidi, and Khadrawy varieties contain invert sugar composed of dextrose and levulose, similar to that in honey. I've never seen date sugar state the type of date used, so it might not be possible to find out what type of sugar it is.

Though fresh dates score low on the glycemic index, dried fruits always score higher, and dehydration would make is score higher still, as the sugar becomes more and more concentrated. So it's not recommended for diabetics or those on a low-glycermic diet, but it's great for anyone else who wants a very unrefined close-to-nature sweetener.

I was surprised to be able to use date sugar in a chocolate cake and have it the texture turn out well and have the sweeteness without date flavor. So I'll be experimenting with this more.

Recipes made with Dates and Date Sugar: