3 Ways to Process Panela

Here is an informative post on 3 ways to process panela at home.

This rock-hard unfined form of sugar is made from cane juice. Once you know how to process this solid form of sugar, incorporating panela into your daily lifestyle will be an absolute breeze. Here are three ways to process panela.

If you would like to learn more about what is panela, then read this guide post.

1. Grate

Grating Panela is the easiest way to break down this solid sugar. You can use a small handheld grater or a box grater. For the box grater, you will use the side largest side (not the side for Madoline) that you would use to shred carrots or grate cheese.

Hold the cone or disk of sugar firmly in your hand and grate in a downward and upward motion like you would grate a carrot. However, I find that grating downward repeatedly is easier. You will use the same technique with the handheld grater.

The smaller the holes on your grater are, the smaller your grated sugar will come out. The grated panel is perfect for baking and spooning into your hot drinks like coffee and tea. I like to grate my panel for cinnamon rolls, I just mix in the cinnamon powder into the grated panela.

2. Break

The method is perfect for when you have to add sugar to boiling hot liquids. You can also blend small chunks of broken sugar. Simply wrap your panela with a kitchen towel and place it on a flat solid surface. Then pound the wrapped-up panela with a hammer until you have small manageable pieces. You can store these pieces in a glass container in your pantry.

Please be careful to not place your wrapped-up sugar on a breakable surface such as glass.

3. Chop

Chopping up Panela is quite easy to do, all you need is a good knife and a cutting board. Simply place your panela on the cutting board and chop in an up-and-down rolling motion (how you would chop carrot sticks into cubes).

This way you get smaller pieces than you would if you used the “break” method. I use this method when I need panela to blend or sweeten a pot of boiling porridge.

I hope that these three ways to process panela inspire you to give this unrefined sugar a try. Panela is a wonderful natural unrefined sugar that tastes absolutely delicious. I mean anything made from cane juice, tastes absolutely tropical and delicious to me. If you would like to learn more about panela, check out my “What is Panela” guide post.

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Let me know in the comments your thoughts on this post and if you have used or have heard of panela before.