The Surprising Trick: How an Apple Can Save Your Brown Sugar
Do you ever struggle with hardened brown sugar that's tough to scoop? Try these two ingenious methods to soften it with ease.
If you use brown sugar, you've likely dealt with the annoying problem of it hardening to the point where it's a struggle to scoop it out of the container.
Why does it happen, and what is the fastest way to soften it?
For anyone who's ever wondered, brown sugar and white sugar are essentially the same, just with a slight difference. Brown sugar contains molasses, which gives it its distinct color. As for health benefits, they're quite similar.
To prevent brown sugar from hardening, store it away from heat, moisture, or air.
If it has already hardened in the jar, try one of these two surprisingly effective old-school methods:
The first method: Softening with a microwave
Place the hardened sugar in a microwave-safe bowl, cover it with a damp paper towel, and microwave for 10 seconds at a time. Once softened, store it in an airtight container. Be careful not to overheat and melt the sugar into a liquid.
The second method: A slice of bread or an apple
It sounds bizarre, but leave a slice of bread in the sugar container overnight, without it touching the sugar. You can put the bread in foil. For those who find this odd, the sugar absorbs the moisture from the bread and returns to its normal texture by morning. You can feed the used bread to birds or other animals to avoid wastefulness.
If you're out of bread, an apple can work just as well, in the same way.
