Natural Brown Sugar - Culinary Considerations

Culinary Considerations

For domestic purposes one can create the exact equivalent of brown sugar by mixing white sugar with molasses. Suitable proportions would be about one tablespoon of molasses to each cup of sugar (one-sixteenth or 6.25% of the total volume). Molasses comprises 10% of brown sugar's total weight, which is about 11.11% of the white sugar weight. Blend it well, either manually or in a blender. Due to varying qualities and colours of molasses products, for lighter or darker sugar, reduce or increase its proportion according to taste. If the requirement is for cooking rather than a product for the table, then blending usually is unnecessary and the sugar and molasses can be added separately.

In following a modern recipe that specifies "brown sugar", one usually may assume that the intended meaning is light brown sugar, but which one prefers is largely a matter of taste. Even in recipes such as cakes, where the moisture content might be critical, the amount of water involved is so small that it rarely will make any practical difference. More importantly, adding dark brown sugar or molasses will impart a stronger flavor, with more of a suggestion of caramel.

Brown sugar that has hardened can be made soft again by adding a new source of moisture for the molasses, or by heating and remelting the molasses.