Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Tuesday Edition: Kitchen Tip

"brown sugar" uploaded to Flickr by las-initially
I love the look, smell and taste of fresh brown sugar.  It immediately reminds me of cookies and more specifically, Christmas cookies.

I very rarely use up an entire box of brown sugar.  So the leftovers typically get hard and turn into a rock.  It's so disappointing when that happens.

When I got married several years back I registered for a brown sugar bear.  It was supposed to help keep the moisture in the sugar so it didn't become rock-like.  You were supposed to soak the bear in water, then let the excess water drip off and place it in your bag of brown sugar, wrap the bag up tight, and then store it in the pantry.  It actually worked pretty well if I actually remembered to soak the bear prior to use and if I actually used the bear!  I don't know what ever happened to that little bear, but I can't find it. 

I've also heard that you can put a slice of bread on top of the leftover brown sugar and that would help keep the moisture in.  This tip has not worked so well for me.  But maybe I was doing it wrong, or using the wrong type of bread.

When all else fails and you haven't remembered any of the preventative tips, you can always take your rock of brown sugar and microwave it.  I've done this before and it works pretty well.  According to Good Housekeeping, the correct way to do it is to place the rock of sugar in a microwave safe bowl, cover it loosely with a damp paper towel and nuke it on high for 30 seconds.  Keep repeating until soft.  Use the sugar immediately.

What are your tips to keeping brown sugar fresh? 

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