It was so chilly this past week that I made crockpot steel cut oats for breakfasts. We like brown sugar, dried fruit, and chopped nuts on our oatmeal. I don't keep brown sugar on hand. It tends to turn into rocks in my kitchen. Instead, when I have a recipe that calls for brown sugar, or if I want a dish of brown sugar for oatmeal breakfasts, I make my own with granulated sugar and molasses.
For the most part, I just eyeball the amount of molasses that I use. But I do follow these rough estimates:
- 1 tablespoon of molasses for every cup of white sugar for light brown sugar
- 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons of molasses for every cup of white sugar for dark brown sugar
When a recipe calls for brown sugar, such as cookie recipes, or if I'm making a pitcher of pancake syrup, I don't bother "making" the brown sugar, instead adding the white sugar and molasses separately. When I want to have a small bowl of brown sugar available for adding to hot cereal or sprinkling on individual pancakes as I stack them, I mix the molasses and sugar together at that time.
Mixing the two together is as easy as using the back of a spoon to mash the molasses into the white sugar. No special tools required.
I have done this trick before, but we usually have brown sugar on hand. We don't use much, so I have experienced the rock hard sugar, too. Who hasn't? There are various ways to soften it, but those all take more time than adding a little molasses.
ReplyDeleteHi Live and Learn,
DeleteThat's how I've felt, that it's more work to soften brown sugar that's hardened than it is to drizzle molasses into white sugar. Anyway, I just stopped buying brown sugar and have been very satisfied with this substitution.