Gordon Ramsay Favorite Sugar For Baking, Explained
Baking may seem simple, but as anyone who has tried to make a passable birthday cake or batch of cookies without a recipe will tell you, it's a lot more complicated than all that. Each ingredient, from the butter to the flour, plays an important role in a baked goods recipe. Changing even one element, like opting for whole wheat flour instead of white flour, or not measuring your flour correctly, can change everything from the flavor to the texture of your baked good.
If there's one person who understands the importance of being technically perfect in the kitchen, it's Gordon Ramsay. You can see his attention to detail in Ramsay's meticulous recipe for making Beef Wellington, and in his often fierce criticism of other chefs (let's just say he had a lot of strong opinions about the viral Weef Bellington recipe on TikTok). So when it comes to baking, it should come as no surprise that Ramsay has opinions about even the type of sugar to be used in your favorite recipes. In a YouTube video the star chef shared about "Mastering the Oven," he divulged his favorite sugar for baking.
It's not too big, not too small
What's Gordon Ramsay's favorite sugar for baking? There are 15 types of sugar for baking we can think of, but Ramsay's top choice is caster sugar. In a YouTube video, he said it's "partway between granulated and icing sugar in size." He even called it "the ultimate sugar for baking," noting how well it dissolves.
You can often find caster sugar at a regular grocery store (it might also be labeled superfine or baker's sugar, according to MasterClass), nestled in with the other types of sugar in the baking aisle. Suitable for making meringues (as Ramsay mentioned in the video), syrups, custards, and baked treats, it can be gold and contain a bit of molasses or be white and more processed. If for some reason you can't get your hands on caster sugar at the store, you can make it yourself.
Using a blender or a spice grinder, process the amount of granulated sugar you'll need for your recipe until it's in between the texture of that and powdered sugar (via Nigella.com). It's really that easy. Just make sure that if your recipe calls for granulated sugar but you're using caster, you follow weight measurements rather than volumetric (via Food Network) — similar to table salt vs kosher salt, the fineness of the caster sugar means it weighs more at the same volume. That's the sort of attention to detail Gordon Ramsay would approve of.