Both white sugar and brown sugar are made from the same plants (sugar cane or sugar beet). To produce white sugar, during a refining process, all its natural juice called molasses is removed. On the other hand, brown sugars are divided into 2 categories: refined and unrefined. The refined kind is regular sugar with some molasses added later, but unrefined brown sugar is less processed to retain some of the molasses content.

However, the final sugar is brown in color and tastes like toffee, while white sugar is odorless. The molasses in brown sugar also retains moisture, and for this reason, foods cooked with it have a softer and denser texture, such as soft cookies.

Foods baked with white sugar, such as meringue and shortbread cookies, have a looser texture. Based on the way of processing, the size of the grains and the origin of brown sugar and white sugar, they can be divided into different categories that are used in cooking and confectionery.