Baking Tip: Make Your Own Brown Sugar

We don't go through brown sugar very quickly, and our supply inevitably becomes hard and difficult to use. Since we learned this tip, we've stopped buying it all together. We just mix plain sugar with one other ingredient ...

You've probably guessed what it is – molasses.

For each cup of sugar, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of molasses for light brown sugar, and up to 1/4 cup for dark brown sugar. Depending on the recipe, you can either combine them in the food processor or just mix them together with other ingredients.

We like doing this for a couple of reasons. First, as we already mentioned, it saves us from having to deal with hardened clumps of brown sugar. (Although, there are tricks for dealing with that problem, and products to help prevent it.)

This method also allows us to control the amount of molasses flavor in the dish. We don't have to buy light and dark brown sugar – we can simply adjust the amount of molasses to fit the recipe.

Do you make your own brown sugar?

(Image: Flickr user The Shopping Sherpa, licensed under Creative Commons)

Comments (22)

Absolutely! It's also cheaper than buying pre-made brown sugar, which of course is just white sugar that was mixed with molasses at the factory.

I've been wondering how to use up the jar of molasses in my pantry and I wonder no more. (Although I use enough brown sugar that the convenience of buying it "pre-mixed" is probably worth it.)

this looks great, but you know you can soften [old] brown sugar just by putting a fresh slice of bread in the container for an hour or so. It'll soften right up.

we put rice grains in salt shakers so it doesn't absorb moisture. I'm wondering if making little rice satchels would work to keep brown sugar soft.

a piece of a clay pot (terra cotta) works well to absorb moisture and keep the brown sugar soft.

Hmm, I feel like I use a lot of brown sugar. Definitely enough to buy it. But it's good to know the ratio of sugar to molasses; I've wondered.

Does anyone know which types of recipes would be okay to mix in the sugar and molasses as separate ingredients, and which would require you to mix the two beforehand?

I'd always kinda wondered if it was just as simple as that. Is it something you have to make on demand, or can you premake it? I know I far prefer brown sugar in my oatmeal, and it's handy to have it ready on hand...although come to think of it, as long as it takes to make steel cut oats, I've got plenty of time to put together a bit of brown sugar :P

I don't use/keep molasses (didn't grow up with it so I'm not used to it) so this wouldn't work for me.

I read this bit of advice somewhere and it was a tremendous help! I keep my brown sugar in an air tight container with as much air as possible squeezed out, and then stored in the freezer.

You'd think it'd come out a brick, but it doesn't! It's quite firm for about 30 seconds, but by the time a minute or so has passed since leaving the freezer, it's soft again. It thaws so quickly!

I've been doing this for months now and it works wonderfully every time. No more microwaving chunks of hard brown sugar whenever I need some. (And this is faster than the bread trick too.) ;)

Aargh! I live in Turkey, where there is no brown sugar, and I was STOKED to see this post UNTIL I realised that we don't have molasses here either! Grrr....

MegP: Unless I'm using the brown sugar as some sort of topping and not baking it, I just mix the sugar and molasses together with the rest of the ingredients. If the recipe calls for creaming the sugar with butter, I'd add the molasses at that point.

PreludeInZ: I've never premade it. I'm sure you could. You'd probably just have to use one of the techniques mentioned to keep it soft.

Sorry folks, but American brown sugar is a very dumb thing, as unhealthy as regular sugar. It is refined sugar to which (also refined) molasses had been added. Why should one take out the molasses from sugar to put it back later?

Much better and healthier is to use muscovado sugar, sugar that is naturally brown because it has not been refined, and that retains most of the minerals from the sugarcane. It tastes much better, too.

I use it for oatmeal, coffee, baking... You may find it for the price of you mother eyes at Whole Foods and other fancy food shops, but Latin stores usually sell it cheap. Is called azúcar mascabado in Spanish, açúcar mascavo in Portuguese.

I have been making my own brown sugar for a few years now and I love it!!

http://www.daisyathome.com/?p=61

I think it tastes better than store bought. You can choose how much molasses you want and alter the flavor of it! :)

I also make my own brown sugar. I especially like being able to make it as dark as I like and since I always have sugar and molasses around, I never worry about having enough brown sugar for a recipe. I do make it in advance--two or three cups at a time--and keep it in a tin. Hardening is never really a problem.

I just use sucanat or panela instead.

Making brown sugar out of white sugar is most bass-ackwards thing I have heard! In India, brown sugar is unrefined sugar i.e healthier. Unfortunately not as easily available in the big cities, its a staple in smaller towns and villages of north India.
Warm ghee brown sugar= Yumnessss!

* Warm ghee brown sugar= Yumness!

For all the people pointing out that American brown sugar isn't healthy, um, it's SUGAR. It's not a health food regardless. Yes, it's nice to have something be less processed, but in the end, if you're using it, it's for the taste and not the health benefits.

I'm in France and soft brown sugar is difficult to find here as well. I've recently discovered it at the health food stores (Naturalia & Bio Coop) http://twitpic.com/bowou - it's called sucre de canne (cane sugar) and comes in either light or dark. Btw, many will say that cassonnade is the French version - TOTALLY WRONG - it's more like "sugar in the raw": large, dry crystals instead of small, damp ones. Hope that helps someone.

I don't, but I will be now.

Brown sugar is not the same thing as unrefined sugar (muscovado) which happens to be brown but has a different taste (a very good taste but different). American brown sugar is white sugar mixed with molasses and most americans have been trained to buy it premixed in the store. This tip smartly shows us how to make it ourselves. Thank you, this is something I've always wanted to do myself and now I have the correct proportions to try it.

Living in Switzerland where "brown sugar" is unavailable, I have been making my own for years. I would highly recommend doing the mixing in a resealable plastic bag. Sugar in. Molasses in. Close the bag. Squeeze and rub the contents together and voilà - you have brown sugar without any mess, and also ready to store.

incidentally, we have raw sugar here which is brown, but it's a poor substitute for international recipes which call for "brown sugar"