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This is a step-by-step, very easy guide on how to soften brown sugar. If you have found yourself with rock hard brown sugar, not to worry! This post will show you how to get it back to normal brown sugar that’ll be perfect for these Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies–a crowd favorite!
The Dilemma of Hard Brown Sugar
Have you ever gone to your pantry wanting to make cookies and then realize that the brown sugar is totally hard and dried out? I recently was craving these Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies and it was such a bummer! Don’t worry because I realized this is a common problem and there are a few fast and easy solutions.
The Best Ways To Soften Brown Sugar:
- Use an apple – You can actually place a sliced apple into your brown sugar bin and the moisture from the apple should transfer to the brown sugar.
- Using clay tiles. They sell clay tiles specifically for keeping brown sugar moist. Most bakeries use these and they are very effective. But unfortunately it’s not always something easy and assesble.
- Microwaving the brown sugar. You can always add the brown sugar and a drop of water or two to a bowl. And then turn the microwave on high for 1 minute. This works like a charm. (I don’t own a microwave. I know, I know…)
- Bread – White sandwich bread works best for this but any bread will work. Add a slice of bread to the bin and all of the moisture from the bread will transfer to the brown sugar.
How to Soften Brown Sugar
My favorite method is with a piece of bread. It’s so simple and I usually have a piece of bread readily available to sacrifice to this endeavor.
- I added the blocks of brown sugar to a bowl. If you have a big container of brown sugar, you can simply skip this step and just add the slice of bread to the bin.
- Add the bread. Wrap the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. And wait. I like to give it at least four hours but ideally just leave it overnight.
- Unwrap and it and be stunned at the soft brown sugar.
Brown Sugar FAQs
First we have to discuss, what is brown sugar. Each granule of sugar is coated in a thin layer of molasses. That’s really what brown sugar is: brown sugar coated and mixed with a bit of molasses. When the sugar is fresh and moist, the molasses that coats it, slips against the other granules easily. When it looses its moisture, that molasses hardens.
The good news with hard brown sugar is that it can easily be re-hydrated. Molasses can absorb moisture from either bread or a clay plate or water (see above) and then you can proceed to use it in whatever recipe or way you like.
Cookies That Call for Brown Sugar
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How to Soften Brown Sugar
Ingredients
- 1 hard brown sugar
Different Options:
- 1 slice bread, (white bread works great)
- 1 sliced apple
- 1 clay tile , (for brown sugar softening)
Instructions
To Soften Brown Sugar:
- Add the brown sugar to a large bowl (or if your brown sugar is stored in a big bin, you can just add the things to that) and place the apple or bread right on top. Wrap it tightly with plastic wrap and let it sit for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight.
- When you wake up, you can unwrap the bowl and you'll be met with soft brown sugar.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
you can also use a damp paper towel resting on the top, it’s worked in the past for me and no wasting foods – yay!!
Awesome tip, thanks for sharing! Will have to try that out sometime- I definitely have a “hard brown sugar” problem once in a while!
I read that bread tip a few years ago, and I use it 24/7 now! I always have a slice of bread in there–I just change it out every other week or so.
And I’ve also seen half-loaves of bread in a few chain supermarkets (Kroger, etc)…that’s pretty close to a few slices! 🙂
This trick also works with softening cookies. I just pop a slice of bread in a container with homemade cookies, and they stay soft and moist!
The bread might work but I really needed it right away. The way spoken about here takes much longer than I want to shoot for. Thanks for the tip but no thanks.
I quite like the essence of apple brown sugar idea! I’m thinking the bread one would be great if you just so happened to need some breadcrumbs too. Stale essence of sugar breadcrumbs 😉
That is such a cool trick!! I am not patient enough to wait for it to soften though. I’m the crazy that just throws it in 😛
I liked the post bc it’s funny!! Also, the Marcia person comment was LOL!!!
I don’t own a microwave either and… *blush* i also make my own brown sugar! it’s super easy and then that way i don’t buy brown sugar once a year and then forget i own it until i’ve accumulated 8 hard bags in my pantry (my sister does that, but she’s preggars so she gets to do whatever she wants right now:)
Wow how do you make brown sugar? I always thought it was a kind of sugar lol, feel a bit dumb now 😛
Oh TOTALLY EASY (:
and don’t feel dumb, it’s some sort of secret I’m posting right now (:
1 cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp molasses
That’s it!!!
you can control how light or dark you want it,
yay!
😀
I never heard of doing that with bread! So interesting! There’s so many alternate uses for things that I will never know…
I keep an orange(small clementine) in a glass jar with my brown sugars…the orange never molds or rots – maybe the sugar preserves it – and the brown sugar is always soft:)