So your brown sugar sat in the pantry for too long and now it’s turned into a brick. While you could trysome tricks to revive your brown sugar, restoring the hardened lump to a malleable state might take a few hours. Instead of chiseling away at the sweet block, why not learn how to make brown sugar from scratch? All it takes is two simple ingredients. But before we get to that, let’s start with the basics:
What is brown sugar?
Brown sugar is often made by mixingwhite sugar with a smallamount of molasses, giving it a tanned hue and wet-sand-like consistency. The sweet stuff comes in two shades: light brown sugar (3%–4% molasses) anddark brown sugar (6%–10% molasses). Given its lowermolasses content,light brown sugar has a mildercaramel flavor; it adds fluffiness and moisture tochocolate chip cookies andpecan pie. You’ll finddark brown sugar in both sweet and savory recipes where a more prominent molasses flavor is desired, includingbanana muffins,gingerbread cookies, andbarbecue sauce.
So brown sugar iswhite sugar with molasses added. But what is molasses?
Often used as asweetener in baked goods, molasses is a natural by-product of the sugar refinement process. It’s a key ingredient in chewymolasses cookies and savory dishes likemolasses-brined chicken.
To make molasses, manufacturers crush rawsugarcane or sugar beets and simmer their juices until the sugar granules crystallize. The sugar crystals (a.k.a. thewhite sugar you’ll find in bags at the supermarket) are separated from the residual thick, brown syrup that’s bottled and sold as molasses. Some producers boil the syrup a second or even a third time to make darker styles of molasses (more on that in a minute).
The refining process separates the sugar crystals from the liquid molasses. To make brown sugar, producers either leave a small amount of molasses in the mix or reintroduce some of the finished molasses to the refined white sugar crystals, resulting in plush, dark-hued brown sugar.
How to make brown sugar:
Since brown sugar is really justgranulated sugar with molasses added, it’s easy to make at home. In fact, making a batch of brown sugar for each baking project is one surefire way to guarantee you’ll never end up with a dried-out brick of the stuff wasting away in your cabinet. You can also scale this recipe up to make a large batch—store it in atight container, as exposure to air will cause brown sugar to harden.
To make light brown sugar, combine1 cupwhite granulated sugar and1 Tbsp. molasses (increase to2 Tbsp. molasses fordark brown sugar). No need to whip out the blender orfood processor—you can mix this by hand. Whisk in a mixing bowl until the molasses is fully incorporated (about 2–3 minutes), with no streaks remaining. For a more hands-off approach, feel free to use a stand mixer.
This recipe yields around 1 cup of brown sugar, which can be used as a 1:1 replacement forstore-bought brown sugar in any recipe. Store yourhomemade brown sugar at cool room temperature in anairtight container to keep it fresh.
Types of molasses and other brownsugar alternatives:
When shopping at the grocery store, you’ll probably come across quite a few varieties of molasses. There are light and dark molasses, sulphured and unsulphured molasses, and alternatives likeblackstrap andtreacle. But what do these labels really mean?
