This morning I sat down at my desk with a mug of hot chocolate and a giant gummy tarantula left over from Halloween. I settled in and opened my weekly Goop email from Gwyneth Paltrow, which was all about breaking the addiction to sugar. Awesome, hopefully no one else could see what I was eating for breakfast. More

Lately, I have heard food companies highlighting that they use beet sugar. The term seems to be thrown around as an answer to high fructose corn syrup. But, is it really something noteworthy? More

I just finished a week-long baking class in San Francisco where we focused on how certain ingredients function in any given recipe. Sugar came up often as more and more people are experimenting with natural sugars instead of white, refined sugar. But I left the class wondering: is brown sugar really better for you? Is Turbinado sugar an even better choice? More

With the start of the holiday season so close, we've already received several invitations to friends' homes for get-togethers or parties. Like in many households, money might be in short supply, but that doesn't mean we have to go empty-handed.

Hostess gifts are wonderful things and they can literally be as beautifully simple as a scented jar of sugar.

Here are five reasons why a jar of sugar can be the perfect gift this fall season. More

As an alternative to sugar, stevia seems almost too good to be true. It is naturally-derived, nearly calorie-free, and made with no additional ingredients. It's also even sweeter than sugar, so we don't need to use as much of it. Do you use stevia? More

If you enjoyed my previous post on edible flowers, A Roundup Of Edible Flowers, perhaps you're looking for ideas for what to do with edible flowers. How about making some candied flowers? They add a wonderful touch to desserts, and make lovely gifts. Store-bought edible flowers can be quite expensive. It is very easy to make your own, and can make for a fun project with family or friends! More

Just to be clear, we're talking about packing brown sugar into a measuring cup, not in our luggage! (Although...) Recipes with brown sugar almost always call for it "packed" while most other baking ingredients are sifted or merely scooped. Why the special treatment for brown sugar? More

We've eaten a lot of cinnamon toast over the years and made more batches of gingersnaps than is probably healthy. We don't like to brag, but we consider ourselves to be something of cinnamon-sugar aficionados. When it comes to the perfect ratio of cinnamon to sugar, we think we've nailed it. More

It's funny: we know brown sugar gets hard if you leave it out and we've developed plenty of strategies for keeping it soft, but we've never stopped to wonder why it gets hard in the first place. After all, other kinds of sugar are fine on their own. What makes brown sugar so special? More

Anything that gets in the way of whipping up a batch of chocolate chip cookies is definitely not our friend. And fossilized brown sugar has interfered more times than we can count!

Short of getting out the hammer and getting physical, here are some ways to soften brown sugar - and keep it that way! More