Monday, February 28, 2011

Personal Culinary Epiphany: Homemade Brown Sugar (and some favorite cookie recipes!)

This tip may come as no surprise to some of you, but tonight I had a glorious revolution! 

After finally restocking my kitchen with sugar and flour last Wednesday I've had the urge to bake. I made some blueberry muffins last week but I hadn't baked good old chocolate chip cookies in longer than I remember. Tonight I decided I would bake some using my favorite cookie recipe: Toll House Cookies

As I was getting ready to head into the kitchen to whip up a batch I realized I didn't have brown sugar! This is a problem I often face and solve by running around the corner to the store to buy some. Tonight I got smart and finally came up with a solution! I said to myself, "well, brown sugar is just white sugar with molasses..." and the wheels turned. I have some blackstrap molasses for when I make Elie Krieger's Flu-Fighter Cookies and of course I have white sugar... *lightbulb!* mixing them with a little water will produce homemade brown sugar! 

Homemade Brown Sugar
A little less than 3/4 cup of granulated sugar
1 tablespoon of molasses (use less for lighter brown sugar, if you prefer)
Enough water to make the sugar "packed" (about 2 tablespoons)

Put sugar in a bowl, pour in molasses. Stir/Whisk together with fork until the sugar is mostly brown. Then add the water little by little until you get the desire of loosely 'packed' brown sugar. Voila! 

Yield: about 3/4 cup of brown sugar (the exact amount called for in the Toll House recipe) 

These are the cookies I always go to when I need to bake. The recipe is on the back of any bag of chocolate toll house morsels but it is written on my heart and I know all the measurements without looking. I always like to add a bit of cinnamon for spice and some rolled oats for texture. The result is the perfect, homey chocolate chip cookie. 

A moist, yet crunchy perfect cookie.
Never be without brown sugar again! Enjoy!

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