Can I Use Coconut Sugar For The Apple And Almond Cake?

Our answer

Nigella's Apple And Almond Cake (from FEAST) is a gluten-free cake made with ground almonds (almond meal), eggs and apple puree. It uses caster (superfine sugar) to sweeten and for the US granulated sugar could also be used as it is finer than British granulated sugar, so will dissolve into the batter fairly easily.

We would avoid using any syrups for the cake as it is difficult to switch from a crystal form of sugar to a liquid form, as this can affect how the cake bakes. Coconut sugar and maple sugar can usually be switched directly for white sugar in recipes. However, maple sugar is very expensive and has quite a strong flavour, so we would suggest that it is not the ideal choice. Coconut sugar has a slight caramelly flavour and is similar to light brown sugar, so if you use this it will also slightly affect the colour and flavour of the cake and you should bear this in mind. Also try to use a sugar with a fairly fine crystal, so that it dissolves into the batter. Please note that we have not tried the cake with different sugars, so can't guarantee the results.