Saving Sugar

Unless it's around the holidays, I don't cook very often with pantry items like brown sugar. That means that when I do want to use brown sugar in the "off-season" I buy a bag, use about 1/4 cup, and stash it back in the pantry. Sure, I put it in an "airtight container", but no matter the precautions by the time I need that brown sugar again it's hard as a rock.

There are a number of ways to revive your brown sugar, but I think the quickest and easiest is the microwave method. Simply, if you have time for the oven fix (also listed below), you probably have time to go get another bag of brown sugar, so the only deterrent is wastefulness.

Microwave

-Place the brown sugar in a bowl and cover with a moist paper towel.

-Microwave in 30 second increments, checking in between.

- You will want to do this close to use, as the sugar will harden after cooling and losing its moisture again.

Oven

- Put the oven at about 250

- place the sugar in a pan and bake, checking every five minutes.

There are other multi-day methods involving reintroducing moisture (sealing in a baggie with water, storing the sugar with a piece of damp clay pottery), but that...requires planning? Yeah, haven't ever used those methods! I do not recommend chucking the hardened sugar into a food processor/blender and pulsing til usable. It just breaks up the hard sugar without really making it mixing-friendly.