Do you love the taste of brown sugar in your homemade chocolate chip cookies but don’t always have it on hand? What about your morning coffee? Have no fear! You can make brown sugar at home with minimal effort and only two ingredients.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss how to make brown sugar at home in just a few minutes.
We’ll also give you tips on how to store it to keep it soft and delicious for the years to come.
Keep reading for these instructions and more!
What Is Brown Sugar?
Brown sugar is simply a regular white sugar that contains molasses.
Molasses (black treacle) is the thick and sticky byproduct of the process of refining sugar cane or sugar beets into white sugar. When added to white sugar, molasses gives it its characteristic color and flavor.
You can get brown sugar by incompletely refining sugar or by mixing molasses and regular sugar.
Since most of us don’t own a sugar refinery, we’ll focus on producing brown sugar with mixes.
How to Make Brown Sugar With Molasses
The good news here is that it’s extremely easy to make your own brown sugar if you have white sugar and molasses! All you need to do is mix these together in the correct ratios.
There are several types of molasses, but the most suited for this recipe is blackstrap molasses.
Even if you don’t have molasses on hand, there’s no need to worry — you can still make brown sugar from white sugar mixed with maple syrup, agave nectar, or buckwheat honey.
For now, let’s start with the original, step-by-step recipe involving molasses.
1. Choose the Amount of Brown Sugar You Need
Check your recipe and decide how much brown sugar you want to make. Keep in mind that brown sugar can be easily stored and used for years.
After you decide how much you need, mix the amount of regular white sugar you’ll use in cups and put it in a bowl that’s big enough to prevent spills when mixing.
2. Choose Your Brown Sugar Recipe
There’s one question that you should answer before you begin making brown sugar with molasses: how brown do you want your sugar to be?
Here are the recipes:
- Use one tablespoon of molasses per cup of white sugar to make your sugar lighter brown in color.
- Mix two tablespoons of molasses and a cup of sugar to make dark brown sugar.
3. Mix Well Until Combined
Simply add the molasses to the sugar and mix well until combined. If you’re using a stand mixer, you can mix on low speed to make an evenly-colored brown sugar.
Remember, you don’t need appliances of any kind to produce brown sugar. If you don’t have a mixer, a simple fork or whip will do.
But if you want to spare yourself the effort, use a good hand mixer, food processor, or stand mixer.
4. Store the Excess
Once the molasses is fully mixed, your newly-made brown sugar is ready for use.
Indeed, leftover brown sugar can be held at room temperature for years without ever turning bad. As long as you keep it out of the reach of pests and heat, nothing will tamper with its sweet taste.
However, you should expect the flavor and texture to change slightly after about two years of storage. If you’re not careful with storage, what can likely happen is your brown sugar turning into a lump or so-called hardening of the sugar.
To prevent this, keep your brown sugar in an airtight jar, away from heat and sunlight, ideally in a well-organized kitchen pantry. This way, you’ll minimize the evaporation of molasses’ moisture.
How to Make Brown Sugar With Maple Syrup
Maple syrup can easily replace sugar in most recipes, but it can also substitute molasses when making homemade brown sugar. What’s more, maple syrup is a healthier choice when compared to molasses because of its richer mineral content.
That said, the sugar recipe stays the same. Use one tablespoon of maple syrup per cup of white sugar and mix these well. Keep in mind that by opting for maple syrup, you’ll add a more caramel-like taste to your brown sugar.
Also, you can add more syrup to make the sugar darker.
How to Make Brown Sugar With Honey
If you don’t have any molasses or maple syrup on hand, there’s one brown sugar-making ingredient that you certainly have — honey. Yes, you can use honey to make brown sugar, and the buckwheat variety is best suited for the job.
Simply mix a tablespoon of buckwheat honey with white sugar. The resulting sugar will be lighter in color and flavor than traditional brown sugar, but it will still work well in most recipes. As molasses, you can also use honey to substitute for brown sugar in most baking recipes.
Just put one and a half tablespoons of honey wherever there’s a need for a tablespoon of brown sugar. Just make sure to cut back on other liquid ingredients accordingly.
How to Make a Homemade Brown Sugar With Agave Nectar
In addition to molasses, maple syrup, and honey, you can also use agave nectar to make brown sugar. Simply follow the same ratio of sugar to molasses.
For example, if you’re using a cup of sugar, add a teaspoon of agave nectar. Add two tablespoons of agave nectar if you want to make your sugar a darker shade of brown.
These two ingredients will give your brown sugar a unique flavor that you might end up preferring over all others.
So, experiment and see which brown sugar you like best!
How to Make Brown Sugar Soft Again
Nobody wants to deal with lumpy, hardened brown sugar, so here are a few simple ways to preserve and restore its texture:
If you want your brown sugar to be extra soft and moist, add a tablespoon of water for every cup of sugar. This will help to rehydrate the molasses and make the brown sugar softer.
If you need to soften your brown sugar further, try microwaving it. Just place the sugar in a microwave-safe bowl and cover it with a moist paper towel.
Prepped this way, microwave the bowl up for around 20 seconds. This should be enough to make homemade brown sugar that’s both delicious and soft.
Another way you can remedy brown sugar that hardened is by simply placing it in an airtight container with a piece of bread or an apple slice. The moisture from the bread or apple will help to rehydrate the brown sugar and make it soft again.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to produce your very own brown sugar at home, you’ll never need to buy it at the store again!
With these tips and tricks, you can make brown sugar that is soft, tasty, and perfect for all your favorite recipes.
So go ahead and give it a try the next time you need brown sugar for baking or cooking. You might be surprised at how easy it is to make.
FAQ
Is brown sugar better than white sugar?
There’s no significant nutritional difference between brown sugar and white sugar. They both contain the same amount of calories and should be used with caution.
Unlike white, brown sugar does have a small amount of iron and calcium, but it’s not enough to make it healthier.
Can you substitute white sugar with brown?
Absolutely! You can substitute brown sugar for white sugar in most recipes, as they’re equally sweet. That said, brown sugar can change the texture of your baked goods.
Keep in mind that the flavor and color of the finished product will be slightly different.
How much molasses do I add to sugar to make brown sugar?
You’ll need about two tablespoons of molasses per cup of white sugar in granules if you want to make brown sugar of a darker shade.
For light brown sugar, mix it with just one tablespoon of molasses per cup of white sugar, or use honey.
What makes brown sugar harden over time?
The main reason brown sugar hardens is because of the molasses content. When brown sugar is exposed to air, the molasses begins to evaporate, leaving behind a harder sugar crystal. You can prevent this from happening by storing your brown sugar in an airtight container.
But even if you don’t know how to make brown sugar that’s soft all the time, you can remedy the situation by microwaving the brown sugar covered with a moist paper towel.
