Buying brown sugar at the store is not worth it. Don’t do it. Do not be deceived that it is more natural or better than white sugar. If it is labelled brown sugar – then it is just regular refined white sugar with a bit of molasses mixed into it. Light brown sugar has less molasses and dark brown sugar has more. And yet brown sugar is more expensive in the store than it needs to be and then it will dry up on you or you’ll have to buy some special gourmet nonsense thing to try to get it to stay soft – but it will inevitably turn into a giant brown rock. Don’t buy it! Make it. It’s simple.
You can produce small batches just enough for your recipe ( or for baking save yourself the trouble of blending and just toss both the molasses into the bow and stir as the recipe requires).
Turbindo sugar or Demerara sugar – which look brown – are speciality sugars and are produced differently – but if your recipe calls for brown sugar then here is what you do.
What you will need:
a bowl
a spoon
molasses (fancy or cooking – or other type)
refined sugar
If your recipe calls for a a cup of packed brown sugar – then get out you molasses and add a tablespoon of molasses to one cup of white sugar. Stir and stir – smush any slumps with the back of the spoon. If you want light brown sugar add less than a tablespoon. the best bet I find is to start with less and then add to it as needed.
I keep both cooking molasses and fancy molasses around the house so I did the process with both – cooking molasses produces a much darker result with the same amount of molasses is less sweet and has a touch of bitterness to it whereas the fancy molasses is what I prefer – it has a complex flavour and richness, and it is sweeter with almost no bitterness.
This is the process and result with fancy molasses and white sugar:
This is the process and result with cooking molasses and white sugar (to make it darker I just added a bit more molasses) :
T
For more info about sugars: http://www.sugar.ca/english/consumers/sugarfromfield.cfm
baroquegoddess 