How is powdered sugar produced?!
Answers: A friend of mine is convinced powdered sugar is full of chemicals. I thought it was just pulverized white sugar with some corn starch added. Anyone know the answer?
Confectioner's sugar is granulated sugar that has been crushed to a fine powder with 3% cornstarch added to prevent lumping. No chemicals are added . . .
Powdered sugar is sugar that's pulverized, and stabilized with something like corn starch or glucose...
Your friend is dead wrong. Sorry.
From The Secret Ingredient Catering & Event Planning - San Jose, Ca
Organic Powdered Sugar is made from 100% certified organic sugar cane grown and produced without the use of herbicides, pesticides or chemicals. Our powdered sugar is made by simply grinding organic sugar to a fine, creamy powder consistency.
Unlike refined white powdered sugar with its overpowering, harsh, chalky sweetness, Organic Powdered Sugar retains the cane's natural molasses to give a smooth, mellow and rounded flavor. It is perfect for mixing with cocoa
Sugar Manufacturing
Common refined or table sugar is produced from sugar cane or sugar beets. The first step in sugar production is to crush the cane or beet to extract the juice. This juice contains tannins, pigments, proteins and other undesirable components that must be removed through refinement.
Refinement begins by dissolving the juice in water, then boiling it in large steam evaporators. The solution is then crystallized in heated vacuum pans. The uncrystallized liquid byproduct, known as molasses, is separated out in a centrifuge. The remaining product, known as raw sugar, contains may impurities; the USDA considers it unfit for direct use in food.
Raw sugar is washed with steam to remove some of the impurities. This yields a product known as turbinado sugar. Refining continues as the turbinado is heated, liquefied, centrifuged and filtered. Chemicals may be used to bleach and purify the liquid sugar. Finally, the clear liquid sugar is recrystallized in vacuum pans as granulated white sugar.
Pure sucrose is sold in granulated and powdered forms and is available in several grades. Because there are no government standards regulating grade labels, various manufacturers' product may differ slightly.
Powdered or Confectioner's Sugar
Powdered sugar (Fr. sucre en poudre) is made by grinding granulated sugar crystals through varying degrees of fine screens. Powdered sugar cannot be made in a food processor. It is widely available in three degrees of fineness: 10X is the finest and most common; 6X and 4X are progressively coarser. Because of powdered sugar's tendency to lump, 3% cornstarch is added to absorb moisture. Powdered sugar is most often used in icings and glazes and for decorating baked products.
Found this on Wikipedia...
Powdered sugar, also known as confectioner's sugar or icing sugar throughout most of the Commonwealth, is a very finely ground form of sugar.
In industrial food production it is used where a quick dissolving sugar is required or as in domestic use principally to make icing or frosting, and other cake decorations. It is often lightly dusted onto a baked good to add light sweetness and subtle decoration.
It is generally mixed with cornstarch or wheat flour, or calcium phosphate to improve its flowing ability and is not generally used to sweeten a beverage, but producers do make industrial grades available without additives.
You can make your own though by putting sugar in a blender and adding a little cornflour, which is used to help it bind when you make something with it.
Finely pulverised sugar with the addition of harmless stabilizer like corn starch,the use of chemicals is not called for ,it will serve no purpose.