This time of year, we often come across recipes that call for sugars we don't normally use or remember to keep stocked, like superfine or confectioner sugars. What to do if you find yourself short? The good folks from Cook's Illustrated have a few ideas...
Here are the suggestions from Cook's Illustrated for sugar substitutes using regular granulated sugar:
For Superfine Sugar - Run one cup plus 2 teaspoons of white sugar in the food processor for 30 seconds. This gives you 1 cup of superfine sugar.
For Confectioner's Sugar - Run 1 cup of white sugar and 1 teaspoon of cornstarch in a spice grinder or blender until powdered. They say a food processor won't process the sugar fine enough, and to process in two batches if your spice grinder is too small. Once powdered, sift the sugar through a fine-mesh strainer to remove any larger particles. This gives you 1 cup of confectioner's sugar.
For Brown Sugar - Pulse 1 cup of white sugar and 1 teaspoon dark molasses in a food processor until combined. If you need dark brown sugar, use 2 teaspoons of molasses. This gives you 1 cup of brown sugar.
How can this work? This article reminds us that these "fancy" sugars are nothing more than commercially processed white sugars. Making them at home is just a matter of duplicating the commercial process. They said that their substitutes worked just as well as the store-bought kind in their recipe testing.
Knowing these substitutes is useful not only for when we run out of a certain sugar, but also when we don't want to buy a whole bag when only a small amount is needed. Give it a try!
• This tip was published in the November/December 2008 issue of Cook's Illustrated. To subscribe to this magazine, visit their website!
Related: Pantry Basics: How to Make a Cake Flour Substitute
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Love CI...used their sugar cookie recipe from the holiday baking issue for last weekend's cookie decorating party, and the dough was easy to work with, baked up perfectly (no morphing snowmen) and finally...really tasty!
Great idea--I hate to buy a particular sugar for a recipe and then have to store 3/4 of a bag in my pantry for months on end...
Just a note though that there are different kinds of brown sugar (beyond color). Cane based brown sugar is usually cane sugar blended traditionally (crystallized) with molasses. Most of the brown sugar on the shelves at the grocery in the US is white beet sugar just sprayed with molasses. I think the former (cane brown sugar) tastes more complex in cookies & such... I've never compared it to "homemade" brown sugar though. That would be an interesting experiment!
You can tell I'm a baker: I almost always have all of these sugars in the house, as well as turbinado sugar and maple syrup. These are good to know for when I run out halfway through a recipe, though. I really hate that.
Oh, making brown sugar as I go would be MUCH better than buying brown sugar and having it go all hard before I use it up. Thank you!
I always make my own brown sugar because I hate buying a bag and letting it go hard. It's much easier to keep a jar of molasses in the cupboard.
Thanks! I had read different things about making your own powdered sugar and what the ratio with cornstarch would be - this is a helpful all in one!
For most recipes that call for brown sugar, wouldn't it work the same if you just added the regular sugar and the appropriate amount of molasses? That seems like a reasonable way to go. And it won't require additionally messing around with a food processor.