I have been invited to a cookie exchange and have to take about 5 dozen cookies. I was looking through my recipe books and saw the usual caster sugar ingredient which i cant find in the supermarkets here. Do they use it at all? I dont have a processor or I would blitz some myself from granulated - so if i cant buy it i shall have to ignore those recipes for now.

also - any US equivalent to golden syrup - or do i have to go and cough up and buy it in world market?

Caster sugar is sometimes sold as "superfine" or "extra fine".
You can but it online, but its expensive (so much so that you could buy a cheap hand blender and make your own):
http://www.chefscatalog.com/product/...ine-sugar.aspx

You could try refining normal sugar in your coffee bean grinder - no idea if it will work

I would blend it, though I've used just regular sugar when it calls for castor sugar and they've turned out great. I usually replace golden syrup with maple syrup if I don't have any, but that's me - depends on how strong the cookies are - i.e. for spice or ginger cookies, I'd use it as it doesn't make much difference but for others I'd purchase golden.

That's helped..not!

What cookies have you decided on?

Are you using a British based recipe for your cookies? If so, save yourself the hassle and use an American recipe. There's plenty of good American recipes for cookies on the internet. I like gourmet.com, epicurious.com amongst many.

I've always used "granulated" sugar for my recipes, the granulated here is a lot finer than back home which is perfect..

IMHO definitely use american recipes...they are a lot easier and there are so many to choose from, you can go from the basic "chocolate chip" all the way to gourmet...

You could also put some regular sugar into a baggy, and roll a pin over it or something heavy to make it a tad finer if you don't have a blender.

allrecipes.com I think they even convert stuff...though that might be another site

Isn't caster sugar the same thing as confectioner's sugar? My husband has mentioned that it's similar (though I've never seen/had caster sugar).

Yes. That's another good site. Is that the one where you can adjust the recipe depending on how many servings you want?

No. Caster sugar is granulated like our regular white sugar, just a bit finer. Confectioner's sugar is called Icing sugar. (well that's what we called it in S.A. - don't know if they call it that in the UK).

yeah, it does and you can change from metric to US measurements, but I guess it doesn't convert ingredients.

They do...

Seriously, use an American recipe with American ingredients and measurements. It'll be far easier for you, especially since you're to make five dozen cookies.


Just choose a main ingredient or two. e.g. chocolate chips, dried cranberries, peanut butter, etc. and search for recipes that look simple.

I've made this recipe, Canadian Maple shortbread, as Christmas cookies for neighbors in the past-

http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/getrecipe.zsp?id=38201

I happen to have a lot of Canadian maple syrup in the house at the time.

The type of sugar that you speak of is called BAKING SUGAR. This sugar is much finer than the granulated yet it's still granulated. You don't want to used powdered sugar as it has a different outcome when whipped into butter. You should be able to find this at your local grocery store. Just be sure it's big enough. Here's a link to the sugar I mentioned.

As for Golden syrup, you might want to go to World Market for that. Based on your ingredients I can tell these cookies are fantastic already. If you don't mind making a World Market run then by all means throw in some diversity at the party. I always stick with something I know when I'm making a first impression with my baking skills anyway.

As others have said, you can get superfine sugar. Domino has a web page on which you can search for supermarkets carrying it by your zip code.
(Don't know if that last sentence was gramatically correct, but click the link and you'll get the idea)