Brown Sugar; Homemade
Brown Sugar
Equipment
- Scale
- Bowl
- Measuring Cup
- Tablespoon
Ingredients
- 200 Grams White Sugar (1 Cup)
- 80 Grams Molasses (4 Tablespoons)
Instructions
- Mix the sugar and molasses together uncombined evenly. The color will turn brown, obviously. You can use a food processor to speed up the process and make it easier.
Notes
Brown Sugar; The Sweetest Thing
As a baker, one of the most vexing things about living in Japan is finding proper brown sugar. I’ve just gone without using it at all or substituting it for light brown sugar, but Naomi’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies just aren’t the same without real brown sugar. Oh, what a fool I’ve been.
It’s simple to make!
Not only that, but making your own brown sugar allows you to control the taste. You can make a light version, which would be just 1 tablespoon to a cup, or make a really deep version, 4 tablespoon to a cup.
The best part…
Perhaps the best thing about making your own brown sugar as needed is you don’t have worry about the sugar going hard. You see, molasses adds moister to sugar. As that moister evaporates, the sugar bricks and pretty much become unusable. So if you have kilo of brown sugar sitting around in your cupboard for months, this will mostly likely happen. Since the molasses has been removed from white sugar, this doesn’t happen.
(yes, there are ways to re-moisten your darker sugars, but it requires doing things other than baking and I don’t have time for that)
Finding Your Next Fix
Getting your supplies should be dead easy. In the US/EU you should find white sugar and molasses is any supermarket.
In Japan, you should be able to track-down molasses in any shop that specializes in baking. You can, thankfully, also get in on Amazon.
What is Molasses?
You might be wondering; what is molasses and where does it come from. Well, great questions.
Molasses actually comes from sugar cane or sugar beets. Molasses is produced during the refinement process. Generally speaking, sugars are produced by having all the molasses removed. These go on to become white sugars. Molasses can be added back in to white sugar to create darker sugars. I know, it seems like a needless thing to do. Why not just skip this whole process?
From what I understand, you can find sugars like this, but not in the US.
Molasses is a type of sugar, and looks more like dark gooey syrup than. It works great in baked good, baked beans, and BBQ sauces. Being that it is a sugar, it is unhealthy. It’s, of course, not carb friendly. If you’re on a carb-free diet, you should avoid using molasses. Like any sugar, you should moderate how much you consume.
How come you taste so good?