What Are the Best Tips for Baking with Brown Sugar?

One of the best tips for baking with brown sugar is to realize its differences from the white variety. To offer the same sweetness as white sugar in baked goods, the brown type must be pressed, or packed, into a measuring cup. Yet, knowing this, lower calorie, less sweet baked goods can be created by not packing it down when measuring it for recipes to replace white sugar. Brown sugar is much richer than white as it's made with molasses. Baking with brown sugar can result in rich tasting delicious desserts that include streusel-topped pies and coffeecakes as well as baked squashes for a side dish or meals.

Acorn, butternut and many other squashes can be enhanced by adding butter mixed with brown sugar during the end of the baking time. This may be done when cooking squash in a covered microwavable container in a microwave oven, but the vegetable's skin should be pierced in several places using the tines of a fork. Like making baked potatoes in a microwave oven, squashes may explode if their skins aren't pierced. The squash should first be baked alone until it becomes softer in texture before adding brown sugar to the dish in the oven or microwave.

A great tip for varying a fruit pie recipe is to make it with a streusel topping rather than an upper crust. The lower pie crust may be a crumb or dough type. A mixture of brown sugar, flour, salt and chilled butter in small pieces makes a basic streusel. When baking with brown sugar in a topping such as streusel, some bakers may add other ingredients such as oats and/or cinnamon. Streusel toppings can be delicious on coffeecakes and muffins as well.

Since the color of different types of brown sugar relate to how much molasses is used in each, the darker kinds have the richest taste. Golden brown sugar has much less molasses, so it has a much lighter taste as well as color than the demara type, which is dark and flavorful. When baking with brown sugar, a moist, soft texture is desirable in all types. To keep packages of brown sugar from hardening into lumps, a slice of fresh apple added to the tightly closed package for a few days oftens help the sweetener maintain its moist texture. Storing brown sugar in a cool, dry place can also help it from becoming hard and lumpy.