How to Make Brown Sugar {Homemade Brown Sugar}
Learn how to make brown sugar in under five minutes, with only two ingredients. Make this brown sugar recipe at home, and never run out of this crucial baking ingredient again.
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Homemade brown sugar is so much easier and cheaper to make than you think. Make it at home and impress your friends! Or at the very least, you’ll impress yourself.
First things first, this recipe is EASY. And so simple to adapt to meet your baking needs. It’s totally fine to experiment with measurements to make it how you like it. You can’t break this recipe!
We go through a lot of brown sugar because they are a key ingredient in something I make a lot – my recipe for The Softest Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies. It’s also amazing in these Fudgy Gluten Free Chocolate Brownies and of course, Overnight Cinnamon Rolls.
What Ingredients Are in Homemade Brown Sugar?
- Sugar
- Molasses
Yep, that’s it!
The best kind of sugar is what you have on hand! Muscovado and coconut sugar already have that brown sugar flavor, so will need just a touch of molasses to really get it to that brown sugar level. If you want to use an alternative sweetener like Splenda or monkfruit, follow the same measurements as regular sugar.
What kind of Molasses Should I Use to Make Brown Sugar?
Light molasses is the result of the first processing of sugar cane and will result in a lighter sugar. You may need to use a bit more to get the sugar exactly how you’d like it.
Dark molasses happens after the second processing of sugar cane and is a great “medium” molasses to use in this recipe. And lastly, blackstrap molasses is produced after the third boiling of the sugar. It’s bitter but also has the highest health properties.
I prefer to use blackstrap molasses because it is high in iron. You can feel “good” about eating a chocolate chip cookie when it adds delicious iron to your diet. Right?
How Do You Make Brown Sugar Without Molasses?
If molasses isn’t something you can get your hands on, treacle will also work. Treacle is not a common ingredient in the states, so my US readers will probably only know of it from Harry Potter. 🙂
Pro Tips/Recipe Notes
- It lasts as long as storebought will before getting hard.
- If you need to soften up some cakey brown sugar, place a few slices of apple in the jar and wait an hour. A soft piece of bread works as well.
- If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can use a hand mixer, food processor (though only on the pulse function or you’ll end up with powdered sugar!), or even two forks or a pastry cutter and a lot of patience.
MORE RECIPES LIKE THIS
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- Check out all my brown sugar recipes
Homemade Brown Sugar
Equipment
Instructions
- Combine ingredients in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.
- Mix on low for two minutes, scrape the sides, and mix for another two minutes.
- Transfer to an air-tight container and store just as you would normal brown sugar.
Notes
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I always turn to this in a pinch when I’m out of brown sugar.
So glad it has been helpful Elizabeth!
McFrugalpants never lets me down! This was super easy to put together. I will never buy brown sugar again!
You’re awesome Erin! Welcome to a whole new world.
Hi Sarah,
How do you store your homemade brown sugar? Do you keep it in the pantry or does this have to be refrigerated? Thanks for the recipe!
In a big mason jar in the pantry next to all the other baking stuff. It rules that it’s shelf-stable.
You are an angel for posting this – SO FANTASTIC and easy!
So glad you found it useful Monica! I appreciate you taking the time to leave a review. 🙂
Picture this: Thanksgiving day, getting ready to pan fry sweet potatoes in butter and brown sugar. Hubby takes that moment to tell me he used the last of the brown sugar 3 weeks ago but failed to mention it when shopping for turkey day supplies. I don’t panic, I just close my eyes and internally repeat the mantra “Love is a choice. I don’t always have to like you, but I choose to love you.” Outwardly, I tell him that my friend Sarah told me I could make my own. Matricide averted and day saved. Thanks! (Also, we’re friends now. Cool?)
Your husband is SO lucky we’re friends or I do fear that the bird in the oven wouldn’t be the only loss of life that day! He sounds so much like Troy and it makes me want to scream.
I’m thrilled I can help and even more excited we’re friends!
This tasted… just like brown sugar! Victory!
Neat! This I will have to try … makes so much sense!
um…. do you need more recipes for that molasses in your cupboard because I use it for everything from baked beans in the slow cooker to gingersnap cookies, and sometimes just with soft butter on brown bread, and for that matter IN brown bread.
Thank you, but oddly enough, I don’t love molasses-flavored things. Odd, right?
Sarah, you just made my day! I may sound stupid, but I had never given a thought about the composition of brown sugar, how it was made, let alone the fact that I could make it myself!!! This is brilliant! I just can’t wait to finish the bag I have from the grocery store and start making my own.
AWESOME. Thanks for this!