Tuesday, June 21, 2011

How to Make Homemade Brown Sugar.

Imagine the prettiest, richest, most delicious, decadent slice of fudgey chocolate cake that you can, covered in whipped clouds of vanilla-malt frosting, and lots and lots of chocolate sprinkles.

... that was supposed to be today's post.

I'm sorry. Are you hungry too? There really is cake in my kitchen (... and snickerdoodles... and monkey bread), but the layers came out crooked, the vanilla frosting came out chocolate and in the end it was, well, basically this cake.

Which is why I'm giving you sugar today. Brown sugar! We're going to make it!
I know. Who does that? Who makes brown sugar?

Better question: who doesn't. Who doesn't like brown sugar? I used to eat it with a spoon when I was kid. That probably explains a few things.
This was fun and easy and kind of blew my mind a little. The flavor of fresh, homemade brown sugar doesn't even compare to store-bought brown sugar, especially in cookies or on top of oatmeal. It's... deeper? Richer. Better! And this is all you need:
Trust me. Try this. Two ingredients, ten minutes, perfect in a pinch, and the best part of all, besides feeling awesome all day (you just made. sugar.) is you get to control how light or dark the sugar is by how much molasses you add! Fancy!
And it's so fluffy!
I'm sorry. I had to. It's been stuck in my head all day.

Bikinis are stupid. Make sugar. Be happy.
Homemade Brown Sugar

1 cup granulated sugar
1-2 tablespoons molasses (depending on how dark you want it)

In a medium bowl, add molasses to sugar and mix with a fork or using a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, working up to high speed, until no big clumps of molasses remain. This'll take several minutes.

At this point I thought, right. Brown sugar. Uh-huh. Not going to happen. Trust me. Keep mixing! 
And mixing!
Aaaaand mixing. If you need to, you can stop and smash the molasses lumps with a fork a little.
Almost there!
Don't worry if you still have tiny lumps of molasses in your sugar. I did. They were tasty.
And that's it! It's magic. Store it in an airtight container. Do a little dance. It's that easy. Brown sugar. Do it. You'll need it for Thursday's recipe.