Bright raspberry sugar is easy to make and perfect for iced tea, cocktails, and spring baking. Make it with granulated or powdered sugar!
what is raspberry sugar?
Raspberry sugar is a fun flavored sugar made with real raspberries and no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives. This berry infused sugar can be used to sweeten beverages (think pink lemonade!), sprinkle on cereal, toast, or yogurt, or bake into countless raspberry cookies, cakes, frostings, etc.
Ok so what’s the catch with making raspberry sugar?
You can’t simply mix fresh raspberries with sugar ~ it will turn into a mush. A delicious mush, but a mush nonetheless. To infuse fruit flavor into sugar there can’t be too much moisture involved or your sugar will simply dissolve. So, for instance, to make my citrus sugar I process lemon or orange zest with the sugar ~ this gives me a fragrant sugar without using any fruit juice.
Of course raspberries don’t have zest, so for this raspberry sugar there’s a different solution: freeze dried raspberries! Freeze dried raspberries have been through a process called lyophilization, which removes moisture and preserves the freshness, taste, and nutritional content. It has a crunchy, airy texture and a flavor that’s much more concentrated than its fresh counterpart. The shelf-life of freeze-dried fruit is much longer than that of fresh fruit, too, so when you blend it with granulated sugar the resulting raspberry sugar is shelf stable for a long time.
what you need
- freeze dried raspberries
- I use a 1.2 ounce bag from Trader Joes. You can find them at bigger grocery stores, Target, Walmart, and Amazon. My little packet of freeze dried raspberries is made with over 8 ounces of fresh raspberries ~ that’s a lot of flavor!
- granulated sugar
- you can also use confectioner’s sugar so that you can make easy raspberry frostings.
method for making raspberry sugar
- Process freeze dried rasp[berries into a powder. This happens instantly in a blender or spice grinder. I use my Vitamix blender for a perfectly silky pure raspberry powder.
- Blend the raspberry powder with granulated sugar.
storage
Because 99% of the moisture has been removed from freeze dried berries and because, according to Domino, sugar stored in a cool dry pantry “has an indefinite shelf life” your raspberry sugar will keep nicely.
how to use your raspberry sugar
Once you’ve got your pretty pink sugar you’ll find lots of uses for it. Do you like sugar in your tea? Use it. Do you like to sweeten your morning oatmeal or yogurt? Use it! I love to bake with my berry sugar. It works especially well in simple recipes like shortbread or meringues or pavlovas.
what other fruit flavored sugars can you make?
This same idea can be applied to lots of other fruits. Basically any freeze dried fruit or fruit powder can be used. A quick Internet search comes up with these options:
- strawberry
- mango
- banana
- blueberries
- dragonfruit
- pineapple
- apples
- cranberries
- kiwi
love raspberries?
- Lemon glazed raspberry bread
- Raspberry Poppy Seed Dressing
- Raspberry Almond Puff Pastry Danish
- Raspberry Desserts to Make All Summer
- Raspberry Almond Bars
- Raspberry Cake with Lemon Buttercream
- Raspberry Champagne Sorbet
How to Make Raspberry Sugar
Equipment
- blender or small food processor
Ingredients
- 1.2 ounces freeze dried raspberries
- 1 cup granulated sugar (you can also use confectioner's sugar)
Instructions
- Blend or process the raspberries until they become a fine powder.
- Mix together with the sugar. Store in an airtight container in a cool dry place.
Nutrition
What a fantastic idea! And a nice gift, that’s easy to make!!
Can you use this sugar in place of granulated sugar in any recipe? Looking to use it in a coffee cake recipe to add some raspberry flavor
Yes, that should work!
I’m making MORE of this as gifts for friends who are under the weather! It will brighten their comforting tea for sure! Thanks for this creation!
Couldn’t you do the same thing by using powdered jello?
I don’t think that would work partly because there’s gelatin in that, and everything is artificial so you wouldn’t get that fresh raspberry flavor.