Caster Sugar Vs Sugar – What Should You Use For Cupcakes

People have been asking me how cupcakes using the same recipe will turn out when caster sugar instead of fine sugar is used instead and vice versa. And chances are if you’ve ever come across several cupcake receipts, you might have also wondered the same.

When I first started out, I too wondered why some recipes used caster sugar while others used fine sugar. What were their differences? How would they turn out if I pit them against each other in a caster sugar vs sugar battle?

Testing Them Out In Recipes

And so it begins, the battle of caster sugar vs sugar.

I decided one day to take a proven recipe and I swapped the fine sugar in the recipe with caster sugar. I kept the entire process the same, and the only things I changed were the sugars.

And when I had finished baking them, they didn’t turn out any differently. The cupcakes tasted and looked as good.

The Startling Truth

Things were different however when the battle of caster sugar vs sugar was used on another recipe.

This time, I took a recipe that used caster sugar, and I substituted that with fine sugar instead. The results were different.

For one, I could see white spots on the cupcakes, denoting that the fine sugar didn’t quite mix into the cupcake batter as well as caster sugar did.

Theories Derived

When it comes to the battle of caster sugar vs sugar in cupcake recipes, I noticed that I could swap sugar for caster sugar in recipes that called for fine sugar, but not substitute caster sugar for fine sugar in recipes that call for caster sugar.

And based on the cupcake theories that I know, caster sugar is finer in texture, tend to melt quicker, and certain recipes needed caster sugar for those properties that otherwise were not found in fine sugar.

That explains why you can’t use fine sugar in place of caster sugar.

However, recipes that called for fine sugar could use caster sugar in its place because caster sugar had better mixing properties compared to fine sugar, so it wouldn’t give fine sugar recipes any problems.

What You Ought to Use

I believe that as much as possible, stick to recipes based on the type of sugar they call for. Sure you can substitute caster sugar for fine sugar, but caster sugar can cost twice as much, making poor financial sense for you to do that.

But if caster sugar was called for in a recipe, stick to caster sugar or you’ll end up with cupcakes that have white spots because fine sugar isn’t going to mix properly into the batter.

So now that you know why some recipes will call for caster sugar vs sugar in some other recipes, you can try them out for yourself and see the results first hand for yourself. But if you don’t want to waste your ingredients trying things out, then stick to my advice in this caster sugar vs sugar article.