Make Your Own Brown Sugar

Remember how I can’t remember anything?

Lucky for you(?), that hasn’t changed, so I will always have ridiculous stories to tell.

Like how I’ve forgotten to buy brown sugar 3 weeks in a row. 3 weeks!

And before you ask, yes I wrote it down. Yes I marked it on my list on the fridge. Yes I had it ON my grocery list, in the store with me. And still – I either missed the isle completely or maybe accidentally marked through it so I thought I had it? I have no idea what happened.

This past weekend, I put my butter in the bowl to start making my cookie cake for my birthday and skipped over to the pantry to grab my brown sugar.

And then I remembered that I forgot to buy brown sugar. Again.

I was not missing out on my cookie cake, and I was too lazy to put on shoes and drive up to the store just for brown sugar.

So what do you do if you need brown sugar right-this-minute and don’t have any brown sugar?

1. Pray that you have enough white sugar to do this. (I did – barely).

2. Get out the same amount of white sugar  – need 3/4 cup of brown sugar? Get 3/4 cup of white.

3. Grab that molasses that you barely use.

This will save you.

And you may never go back to storebought brown sugar. This stuff smells incredible! Like…so good that you’ll just want to make it your new face scrub, right then, and forget about baking cookies. You’ve been warned.

Homemade Dark Brown Sugar

Makes: 1 cup. Multiply as needed.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 and 1/2 Tbsp molasses

Directions:

  1. Pour sugar into a medium bowl and drizzle the molasses on top.
  2. Stir together with a fork, mixing the molasses into the sugar. The sugar will clump up with the molasses – don’t freak out! Just keep mixing.
  3. Fluff the sugar with your fork a few times once all the molasses is mixed into the sugar. Use immediately or store in an air-tight container.

37 comments

  1. Fun! When we learned in Food Science that brown sugar was just sugar and molasses I was so excited but I still haven’t actually made it at home.

  2. Exactly, molasses is barely used which drives me nuts cause it tastes so gooood! This is a great idea and I bet it’d be awesome in my coffee too…
    Love your site :)

  3. I can’t wait to try this! So fun!

  4. Wow…this is so simple but I would have never thought to do this. Genius!

  5. I always forget about this option!!! Great post. And I adore that cute little mug!

  6. When we went to Jamaica, we went on a tour of a rum estate and we got to taste sugarcane through all of its stages, raw, juice, RUM, etc. But one stage was where they separate the molasses from the sugar and it was this gooey, grainy, molasses-y stuff. Sounds gross but it was so yummy. This reminds me of that.

    Now….wanna take a trip to Jamaica?

  7. I discovered this trick a month or so ago, and I’ve used it a couple times! Those darn grocery lists, I do the same thing! It’s totally on the list, but I somehow manage to miss it.

  8. I had no idea that you could make your own brown sugar! Brilliant post and fantastic pics, too!

  9. I love this! It’s so great to be able to do this when you’re suddenly out or running low :)

  10. What a life saver! I am fresh out of brown sugar and want to make cookies tonight. Guess I won’t be going to the grocery store!

  11. WOW!! So easy!! I’m seriously using this from here on out. Love this!

  12. I’ve heard of this trick but haven’t tried it yet. I’ll have to give it a shot sometime.

  13. I’ve had to do this before, too! Glad I’m not the only one with memory problems! :)

  14. such a good tip! i’m definitely going to TRY to remember this one ;)

  15. This is awesome! Brown sugar is always the one thing I never remember that I’m out of, but I always have regular sugar and a jar of molasses hanging out in the back of the cupboard.

  16. I saw a comment once where the person said she is avoiding sugar now for health reasons, so she sticks to brown sugar. I was so confused thinking, isn’t brown sugar just white sugar with molasses? I think she needs to check this out. ;-)

  17. this is seriously so freaking awesome. i did NOT know that brown sugar is so easy to make!! i love it, thank you for showing this :)

  18. This is so great. I never think about making it at home!

  19. I used to do that all the time too, and it was ALWAYS the brown sugar for some reason. Now I just buy it in bulk like I do granulated sugar. It never occurred to me to make it though!

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