Palm Sugar

A coarse, unprocessed sugar, which is generally brown in color, sticky textured and crumbly in consistency. This sugar, which may also be referred to as jaggery, gur or coconut sugar, is obtained by boiling down the sap from the coconut palm or the palmyra palm tree. The liquid is then cooled and dried to be shaped into crystallized cakes, cylindrical blocks, rough surfaced round balls, small logs, or packaged in cans and tubs as a soft, sweet paste to be sold in Asian food stores. If the sugar is smoke-cured it then becomes much darker in color and noticably distinct in flavor.

Jaggery sugar, which may also be made from sugar cane as well as palm sap, is often produced as a rough or smooth jaggery. The rough jaggery has a stronger flavor with both a molasses and caramel taste. The smooth jaggery has a much milder taste than the rough jaggery, providing more of the caramel flavor than the molasses flavor. The rough jaggery is commonly used in India to sweeten and balance the more intense flavors present in many lentil dishes.

Often used in Asian food dishes, palm sugar has a flavor that is similar to a combination of molasses and brown sugar. It is a sugar that is used to flavor beverages, curries, rice dishes, desserts, and candies.