Keep Brown Sugar Soft With An Equally Sweet Ingredient
Brown sugar is a key ingredient in cookies and caramel, and it can elevate many of your favorite desserts. But it can also be far more challenging to work with compared to white sugar. The main reason for this is brown sugar's habit of drying out and turning into a deliciously sweet brick that's almost impossible to work with. Surprisingly, all you need to prevent this from happening to your next bag of brown sugar is a marshmallow.
Adding a marshmallow to your brown sugar will help keep the moisture in the sugar from evaporating. Marshmallows contain more moisture than you would expect, and putting them into an airtight container or sealed bag with brown sugar allows the sugar crystals to soak up that moisture. This will help keep your brown sugar from drying out while it's in storage, and make that sugar soft and easy to measure for weeks. Just remember to replace the marshmallows as they harden and dry out themselves.
Why does brown sugar dry out in the first place?
The key difference between white and brown sugars is the main reason brown sugar can be so difficult to work with in the first place.
One of the advantages to working with brown sugar is its high moisture content. A freshly opened bag of brown sugar behaves more like wet sand than the drier, more refined white sugar. It has a softer texture, and tends to clump together easily because it contains cane molasses. This molasses is typically refined out of white sugar, and raises the moisture content of brown sugar.
Unfortunately, that moisture can easily evaporate over time. This is what turns your brown sugar into an unusable lump after a short time of being exposed to the air. This causes the sugar crystals to essentially calcify and bond to one another; turning your brown sugar into an inedible rock.
How to quickly soften brown sugar
If all of this is news to you and your brown sugar has already turned to stone, don't go rushing out to buy more. There are a few hacks that can help to revive even the driest brick of brown sugar.
Adding marshmallows to your dried out brown sugar can still help. Dried out brown sugar will still soften slightly once it has been sealed up with marshmallows. This process may take some time to fully revive your brown sugar, but it can also help get it to a workable state that won't require a hammer and chisel to break off a few pieces. You can also use sliced apples to revive your brown sugar.
If you're in a hurry to soften your brown sugar, you can break off a few pieces and then microwave them to soften it. Put the pieces in a microwave-safe bowl and cover it with a damp paper towel. Microwave the bowl for 30-second intervals until the brown sugar has softened completely, then you're ready to bake.