Sugar is a miraculous thing. Although so demonised these days, the complexity of this ingredient – once considered the rarest of luxuries – is far greater than those who decry ‘the white stuff’ would have us believe. For a start, it isn’t always white: those snowy crystals that you spoon into your tea (you philistine) are just the tip of the iceberg. Along the spectrum from refined white sugar to the thickest, inkiest treacle are golden-hued caster and granulated sugar, crunchy demerara, classic honeyed golden syrup, the butterscotch sweetness of light muscovado, the heady sticky toffee notes of dark muscovado, and the burnished caramel of molasses sugar. That’s not even counting variations on a theme: palm sugar, coconut sugar, rice syrup, honey, date molasses…