The Best Substitute For Brown Sugar Is Simpler Than You'd Think

It lends a deeper, richer sweetness to your chocolate chip cookies, it's an invaluable addition to any barbecue rub, and it's one of the very best things you can stir into a bowl of oatmeal. We all know that brown sugar is a welcome addition to any pantry. But what if you're caught off-guard? What if you have an urgent need for chocolate chip cookies (these 100% perfect chocolate chip cookies, for example) but you're faced with an empty spot on the shelf, silently mocking your impotent despair? Don't worry so much –- regular white sugar with a bit of molasses is a great substitute for brown sugar.

In fact, it quite literally is brown sugar. Sugar is made by mashing up sugarcane or sugar beets, boiling them, and then putting them in a centrifuge to separate the crystals (which become granulated sugar) from the syrup (which becomes molasses). To make brown sugar, white sugar is recombined with molasses by an industrial mixer. You may not have an industrial mixer in your kitchen, but if you have some molasses, just stir a tablespoon of molasses into a cup of white sugar for a makeshift replacement.

Now, you may protest that if you don't have brown sugar in your pantry, you certainly don't have any molasses. After all, you're not an 18th century privateer sweetening their meager ration of grog. (As far as we know, anyway.) Well, if you don't have any molasses on hand, you can use an equal amount of white sugar in place of brown sugar, so long as you're mindful of the context.

Since brown sugar is a little bit acidic, it's important to retain that balance when you're baking by adding a ¼ teaspoon of cream of tartar (or white vinegar) for each cup of white sugar. If you're using it in cooking, you can substitute white sugar one-to-one with brown sugar, but it won't taste exactly the same. Maple syrup can be used to add some of that deeper, molasses-y flavor, but again, it won't quite match the taste of regular brown sugar.

What if you ran to the supermarket and grabbed the first package of brown sugar you could find, only to discover upon your return that the recipe for brown butter cinnamon rolls calls for light brown sugar when you bought dark brown sugar? Surely you'd have to stir in some esoteric ingredient to dilute the treacly darkness and keep your dish edible, right? What did we tell you about worrying so much? You can use light and dark brown sugar interchangeably.

There will be some slight differences, of course. Obviously, the color of your dish will be lighter or darker than usual and if you use dark brown sugar it will be more intensely sweet than it otherwise would be. But these are ultimately minor differences, and it won't affect the final product in any real way. After all, the difference between light brown sugar and dark brown sugar is just a tiny bit of molasses.