How to make light and dark brown sugar

If you're out of brown sugar, don't worry, as it's as easy as 123 to make your own and you only need 2 things!

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Although white and brown sugar can be used interchangeably, the flavour of brown sugar is very distinct and does bring that extra something to your food, such as these fingerlicking sticky Vietnamese fish sauce chicken wings. Brown sugar is also a must in Korean pancakes, or hotteok, as it goes so well with the nuts and cinnamon powder of the filling! (Sometimes that edge is unwanted as the strong taste of molasses can overpower more delicate flavours, so do be careful especially when using dark brown sugar in place of white sugar.)

Unfortunately, brown sugar (which is moister than white sugar), tends to harden over time and, by the time you need it, has often turned into a solid lump, so it's great to make brown sugar right before you want to use it instead of keeping it in stock. Once you know how to make your own brown sugar, baking -and cooking- become sooo much more convenient because:

1. Life during COVID means a pop to the shop when you run out of something is much more of a hassle than it used to be (or maybe not even possible if your city is in lockdown!)
2. It's actually cheaper than shopbought brown sugar!

In case you're wondering, this is actually how factories make refined brown sugar (i.e. the brown sugar you get in the shops): they simply add molasses back to the refined white sugar!

Besides brown sugar, I often make my own buttermilk, cake flour and self-raising flour as I don't use the former often enough to stock up on it, often run out of cake flour and find the latter simply a waste of money. (Posts with instructions coming very soon)

What other baking ingredients do you like to DIY?