The Difference is Raw

Today I baked cookies for a cookie swap.  When I bake I use organic, unprocessed and local ingredients.  The friend who invited me to the swap has a similar food obsession when it comes to cooking for her family, but she told me not to use my expensive ingredients for the swap as the "quality" of the cookies I get will not be the same.  I heeded her advice, but I knew my kids would be eating some of these cookies, so I made two batches.

In the first batch (left) I used all my organic flour, turbinado sugar and raw brown sugar, local farm fresh eggs, organic vanilla and grain-sweetened white chocolate chips.  The only thing not organic were the macadamia nuts.

In the second batch (right) I used white processed sugar, my organic flour, processed brown sugar, my local eggs, organic vanilla and the same white chocolate and macadamia nuts.

I could not believe the difference!  The raw sugar produced a cookie that was lighter in color, even though the sugar is darker in color, and a rounder, thicker cookie.  The cookie on the right, with processed sugar, flattened out and just doesn't look as pretty to me.  When I watched them bake you could see the grains of raw sugar melting during the baking process while the processed sugar had dissolved during mixing. 

After a taste test, the one on the left tastes significantly better.  It is softer, and the turbinado sugar makes the white chocolate and macadamia flavors more flavorful.  I will never bake with white sugar again, and on this I shall not waver.  My friends and family deserve a better tasting cookie!