The Daily Ingredient : Brown Sugar

When is comes to making that cookie soft, brown sugar is where the action is. From french toast, to chewy tarts, when chew is in the equation, brown sugar can be your best friend.

Making Brown Sugar
Brown sugar is generally made by adding molasses to white sugar. If you add a little molasses, say 1 teaspoon per cup, you end up with light brown sugar. If you add more, say 1 tablespoon per cup, you end up with dark brown sugar.

It is made this way because it is easy to control the amount of molasses, making manufacturing cheaper and more predictable. Chemicals are sometimes added to make industrial handling easier. While not perfect, this provides cheap high quality brown sugar to the masses.

If you are wanting something a little more natural, you can go for something called Sugar in the Raw. If you take sugar before processing, and extract the straight crystals, you end up with a brown sugar with natural molasses running through the actual crystals. While more expensive, this process doesn’t require any special chemicals, and is considered a more healthy alternative because of the high mineral content and lack of foreign substances.

Using Brown Sugar
Cooking: Alton Brown once said, during a Cookie episode of Good Eats, that varying the amount of white sugar to brown sugar will give you different texture end result. More white sugar gives you a crispy result, and more brown sugar will give you a moist chewy result. So, when cooking think about what you want your end product to be, and adjust your sugar use. Check out these recipes that use Brown Sugar>>

Storage: Brown sugar can easily become clumpy, hard, and nasty if not stored properly. All that molasses can easily turn to rock if you let the moisture escape. Store in a air tight container, and try to only buy the amount you need at the time. If you get too much, the best thing you can do is cook more stuff with brown sugar. But, if you must store, air tight in a room temperature will work best. For extended storage, try adding a slice of apple to keep things moist.

Substitutions: So if you must go without the brown sugar, you can either make you own like we talked about above, or you can add sugar and molasses separately. Using regular sugar may work, but you might end up with something crispy and dry.

So know that you know your brown sugars, lets get cooking!