Have a rock hard lump of brown sugar? Don’t throw it away and waste money. Here is an easy way to rescue it!
This morning, I went to make a batch of morning muffins only to find that the brown sugar must have been left open. Normally, I am pretty good at making sure the bag is closed, but somewhere in the course of moving from one home to another, it must have popped open enough to let some air in.
Air is not good for brown sugar, as it will remove all of the moisture from it, turning your nice pliable brown sugar into that brown lump mentioned earlier. In my pre-frugal days, I might have just tossed the thing and found something else to make for breakfast. Well, really who am I kidding? In my pre-frugal days, I wouldn’t have been baking or cooking in the first place.
Anyway, I discovered a neat little trick to bring that brown sugar back to life. It is so simple. Just put in a half a slice of bread in the bag with the sugar and let it sit there for 24 hours. The sugar will pull the moisture right out of the bread. Of course, your piece of bread will end up dry and hard, but it is a small price to pay to save the more expensive brown sugar. If you don’t want to waste that piece of bread, feed it to the birds. They won’t mind at all if it is a little hard.
One other technique I have heard about for saving brown sugar is to microwave it next to a cup of water. I am hesitant to try this method because I have a tendency to be distracted by the three little people that live with us, and I am too afraid that the sugar will get too hot or even melt or scorch.
The bread technique works well for me. It can even be adapted to use for stale cookies, brownies, etc. And have you ever thrown pizza in refrigerator in its box without wrapping it up first? Yup, dried out pizza.
Do you have any good ways to save food?
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