In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens’s 1843 holiday classic, Mrs. Cratchit’s plum pudding is the epitome of a holiday dessert—a highly anticipated one-a-year treat prepared with love and attention by a doting parent. For centuries, sweet treats were reserved for only the most special occasions because they relied on a rare and expensive ingredient: sugar. It wasn’t until modern technology facilitated the production of refined sugars (pure sucrose extracted from sugar cane or sugar beets and most often taking the form of sugar crystals) and corn syrup (pure fructose and glucose extracted from corn) that desserts became the ubiquitous everyday treats they are today.
