Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Works For Me Wednesday - Brown Sugar

I love baking! This love usually wanes in the summer during the hotter months, but blossoms once the cooler weather comes. Since it's just the two of us, I only bake when we're going to take our goodies elsewhere to share.
With these factors, I don't go through my brown sugar very quickly. I used to get extremely frustrated when I would go to my sealed bag of sugar in the fridge only to find it hardened into mini boulders. I tried hammering them out to only get nice little brown sugar pebbles. Sadly, I can think of a couple times of throwing out half used bags due to not being able to mix it up.
I read how to fix this predicament on the back of a brown sugar bag (imagine that!).
  • Place your brown sugar rocks into a microwave safe conatiner
  • Wet a paper towel and place over the container
  • Stretch a piece of plastic wrap on top of the paper towel
  • Microwave for 30-45 seconds, check the sugar, microwave for an additional 30-45 seconds & check again.

The wet papeer towel/plastic wrap creates a sauna type atmosphere allowing your sugar to moisten & soften & be usable!!

I might be the last person on earth that found this out, but just in case there's another person out there that didn't know of this, I wanted to share. More Works For Me helps here!!

*I also tried this technique on meat that easily dries out in the microwave (ex. pork chops) & it kept them extremely moist & delish!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your informing me for the first time, so thank you...

Samantha said...

No, I didn't know that either. That's a good tip :) I'm the same way when it comes to baking. It's just too tempting to eat EVERYTHING right now, so I usually reserve a small portion for home and then send the majority of goodies to work with Jim.

Mom2fur said...

I can't tell you how often I've thrown out brown sugar rocks. I'm going to write this tip down...thanks!
I something similar with meat that you do, only I put a cup of water on the plate with any meat I'm reheating. I'm not sure, but I think the water helps take away some of the heat so that the meat only warms up, rather than cooking again.

Unknown said...

I never knew that either, Pam. We go through our brown sugar pretty quickly though since we eat a lot of oatmeal and my hubby prefers brown sugar over white in his coffee. I keep our brown sugar in the pantry instead of the fridge and it never gets weird on us.

Carrie said...

I always keep mine in the cupboard - it stays fine for at least a year - never heard of putting it in the fridge before?

Kelly Glupker said...

I'm so glad you posted this because I often have the same problem! Thanks!

Elizabeth said...

I don't put my brown sugar in the fridge either, but mine seems to get dry. Odd. Thanks for the tip, though, because I have had it get hard on me, too.

Anonymous said...

Try putting a piece of bread in the jar or package too. It softens the sugar and then just throw away the bread. Great way to use those end pieces nobdy wants to eat!

pamela s said...

Glad I could help some of you out! Funny how we all refrigerate some things and not others. :) I just did it because my mom did.