Caster Sugar

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, gang. This is Evan Atwater, and I’m from Lummi Bay, Washington.

Hi, Evan. Welcome to the show.

What’s going on?

Hey, thanks very much.

What got me calling you is an interesting thing. My wife and I have a food blog, and we were researching a recipe. It was for a Norwegian sugar cookie, and the recipe was apparently European, and it called for caster sugar.

Now, Monica didn’t know what that was. I do. I’ve heard of it before. But she asked me, you know, why do they call it castor sugar? And I had to admit I had not a clue. And I looked it up, and I found both iterations of castor sugar and castor sugar. And even a reference to a sugar, castor, it was a fancy little, you know, shaker, I guess. But it really didn’t lead me at all to where that came from and why, to me, castor is like castor oil. That was a funky iteration for me. I was really thrown for a loop where that came from.

So C-A-S-T-O-R or C-A-S-T-E-R?

Yeah, the first one was the one that we saw most, and you still see that castor sugar. Over here it’s called baker’s sugar. It’s just real fine. But there were some, and we found recipes, too, that would call it castor C-A-S-T-O-R. So this kind of sugar is not as fine as powdered sugar, but it’s more fine than regular granulated sugar.

Is that right?

Exactly. And that’s what I like for this recipe. It’s perfect because you get a little thin sugar cookie that you put in a cute little metal form. And you do them that way and then fill them for a little good things. So you need a finer sugar to do it right.

Yeah, that’s where the castor came in.

I see. Makes it a little more light and fluffy or something like that?

Actually, a little bit more cookie-like. They come out almost crisp.

Oh, nice. I see. Yeah, and then you put, what we do is put like fresh berries and creme fraiche in there.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah. They’re pretty good.

Well, you know, you were getting very close to the origin of this term, castor sugar, because it does have to do with a castor, which is a little container for sugar that has little holes on top that are especially used for sprinkling sugar or pepper or something like that. It’s called a castor. You’re casting it, just like you might cast seeds to the wind or you might broadcast a radio show, right?

Right, exactly. It has to do with tossing your sugar, basically. And so it’s sugar that comes out of something with holes that size.

Interesting. So I wonder if they had salt casters at the same time.

Good question. I don’t know. That’s a good question.

So do you want our address so you can send us some cookies?

Hey, we will definitely hook you up on that. But hey, let me ask, though, where would the castor come from? Castor, like castor oil, has to do, I think, with castor beans. I think the word castor in Latin means beaver. And I’m not, do you know the connection, Grant?

No, the spelling for this particular device to shake the sugar is just a simply variant of the agentive suffix. You can use E-R or O-R, kind of like advisor or advisor. They both mean one who does something or a thing that does something. So in this case, it is a thing that casts.

Right. So it has nothing to do with the nasty-tasting oil.

Okay. That is so cool. That makes perfect sense.

Yeah, don’t mix those up. I once as a kid thought that corn syrup was the same thing as corn oil, and I made some divinity and gave it to my dad and said, I know it’s brown and not white, but it’s really good, and he tasted it, and he had to run outside and wash his mouth out with a hose. I’m not kidding.

And she hasn’t cooked again.

Pretty much. It’s pretty much the story.

But I do want to read your food blog. So what’s the address?

Oh, it’s Urban Monique. So U-R-B-A-N-M-O-N-I-Q-U-E dot com. And it’s because I’m Eben and my friends call me Urban.

Okay. And Monica gets called Monique. So Herb and Monique.

Gotcha. Oh, that’s nice. I thought it was sharp, and everybody else just kind of nods their head and says, okay. It’s different.

Well, we’re going to go to urbanmonique.com and find those cookie recipes.

Yeah. Evan, thank you for the question, and thanks for sharing. All right?

Oh, you bet. Thanks, guys. It was wonderful. Take care.

Take care, Evan. Bye-bye.

And the other thing which I’ve learned, powdered sugar is different from castor sugar because it has a little bit of something else in it to stop it from clotting.

What?

A little bit of cornstarch.

Is that right?

Yeah, people don’t realize that.

I didn’t realize that. But yeah, there’s just a little bit of cornstarch and powdered sugar. Otherwise, it’d be a clumpy mess.

I did not realize that. Who knew?

Ooh. So I wonder which has more calories.

Who cares?

Who cares?

Off to eat the castor cookies. We will be watching for those cookies in the mail.

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