Ever have the sit­u­a­tion where you are in need of an ingre­di­ent and you go to your pantry and real­ize that you are clear out of it?  That hap­pened to me last year dur­ing the hol­i­days.  I had gran­u­lated sugar, demera sugar, pow­dered sugar – you name it, I had it – all but brown sugar.  Can I tell you how miffed I was to have to leave and run up to the gro­cery store in the midst of a culi­nary project?  Plus, I’m the type of gal who often keeps a spare on hand so for me to be out of what I would deem a vital pantry ingre­di­ent is highly unusual.

I saw a great arti­cle in this month’s Fine Cook­ing  where they gave instruc­tion on how to make your own brown sugar.  I just had to try this tech­nique and, much like a lit­tle kid in a sci­ence fair, I was fas­ci­nated by the process. 

The tech­nique is super sim­ple – for light brown sugar, you basi­cally com­bine one cup of gran­u­lated sugar and one table­spoon of molasses, both of which should already be in your pantry.  If you want dark brown sugar, you just use two table­spoons of molasses.  How easy it that?

Use a large bowl for this, add the sugar and the molasses and use an elec­tric beater.  Beat on medium low steadily until all the molasses is com­bined with the sugar and the size is dou­bled and appears fluffy and soft.  This takes about ten min­utes but you will see the trans­for­ma­tion.  And, the end result, the most deli­cious brown sugar that will make a fab­u­lous crum­ble or other hol­i­day treat and you didn’t even have to break a sweat as you avert a poten­tial culi­nary emer­gency.  Talk about a Mac­Gyver moment!

Gather the ingredients

The look if the rich molasses against the pure sugar is striking

Time to mix

And mix

And at the end of the mix­ing – fluffy gor­geous brown sugar.