Cooking For Engineers

[oscarmeyer]

If your brown sugar goes hard. Take a piece of white bread and place it in the container/bag and re-seal it. Brown sugar will soften completely in a few hours back to its store bought freshness. I leave the bread in the bag once brown sugar has been opened.

[Michael Chu]

That's a pretty cool tip. I usually just microwave it, but that's a temporary fix that doesn't actually introduce any moisture back into the brown sugar.

What happens to the bread? Does it dry out completely to the point where we can use it for bread crumbs? If it doesn't dry out, is there a chance of mold to grow on the bread?

[oscarmeyer]

It won't turn moldy. Keep your bag or container sealed tightly. It will eventually dry out and just toss the bread. You can re-soften the brown the sugar repeatedly.

[LAN3]

I did this once and got white breadcrumbs in my brown sugar. Not an intolerable situation, but now I keep the bread physically separated from the brown sugar with a paper towel-- still seems to work.

[Shotsi]

A slice of apple will soften brown sugar if it gets hard, and is also good for homemade cookies that have gotten hard a day after baking. Best thing is to keep it sealed up to start with, especially since it isn't in everyday use. Put it in a zip-lock bag or a glass jar with a screw-on lid.

[flora]

Keep a piece of terracotta in your brown sugar. A broken garden pot sherd will be ideal, the more porous the better. Wash well first, and give it a final clean in the dishwasher.

[Amysicle]

I've tried the bread, apple slice and terracotta for my brown sugar. I found the bread slice to have worked the best, but as Lan3 mentioned, it does leave white transfer onto the sugar so it is best to keep a paper towel between them.

I've accidentally left an apple slice there for an unknown amount of time and it ended up molding. EW.

And I suppose the terracotta I used wasn't porous enough.

It's nice to see all these ideas out here though.