Lab recipebeginnerdraft
Grinding your own icing sugar
Also searched as: making icing sugar, powdered sugar, confectioners' sugar, icing sugar substitute
In short: Icing sugar is nothing more than finely ground granulated sugar. A powerful blender does it in a minute.
Picture it
Like pebbles ground into sand: it is the same stone, but it behaves completely differently.
You need · 5 minutes
- 100 g granulated sugar
- 1 tsp cornflour (optional)
- high-powered blender or spice grinder
- fine sieve
Fine sugar dust: only open the blender once it has settled.
Step by step: what happens
- 1Grind the sugar finely in short bursts
The crystals break into tiny splinters. The surface becomes a thousand times larger.
Surface area and cut size - 2Wait two minutes before opening the lid
The fine dust should settle.
- 3Push through a fine sieve
Coarse leftovers would crunch in a glaze.
- 4Mix in starch if you like
dust attracts moisture and clumps. Starch keeps it free-flowing.
Sugar holds on to moisture
Result
About 100 g of icing sugar.
Keeps for
Keeps a long time, airtight and dry. Sieve out lumps before use.
What to use it for
- Glazes and icing: it dissolves at once without crunching.
- Whipped cream, shortcrust, dusting.
Sources · 1
- Harold McGee: On Food and Cooking (2004)