How To Make Homemade Brown Sugar and The Gringa’s Chancaca Version

You may be wondering why you would need to make brown sugar when you can just go buy a bag at the store. Well, if that is true then you certainly can and there is no need to continue reading this post. There are three different reasons that you might want to make it, though. Firstly, if you are like me, you may have times where you forget to buy it and run out when you are in the middle of a recipe (happens to me all the time). Secondly, you may want to know how to make it at home as a way of using that extra molasses. Thirdly, if you live in or near Chile you may not even be able to buy it.

If you have read any of my blog then you probably know that there are limited ingredients here in Chile. Brown sugar happens to be near the top of the list. There is Raw sugar, or Rubia as it is called here, white sugar, honey, palm syrup, and then there is Chancaca. You will not find traditional, soft and fluffy brown sugar like you find in the US here, nor will you find molasses. This really presented a problem for my family when we first moved here. I mean, we were in serious need of chocolate chip cookies and there was no brown sugar. How could they not have brown sugar? We use brown sugar in so many things and , no, it cannot be skipped and replaced with white sugar. Could you imagine gingerbread without molasses? Yeah, not gonna happen. So, being a make-shift kind of girl I tried using dry Chancaca.

I have since tried using it in many different ways: melting, chopping, smashing, yelling at it, throwing it (there is no proof to back that up), and blending it. As for melting it I have only had luck to a certain extent. My first attempt at melting it for gingerbread was an absolute failure that took forever to wash out of the pan. I may have permanent scars from trying to chop it as fine as brown sugar but it worked for cookies. As you can imagine, smashing, yelling, and throwing don’t work and I almost destroyed a perfectly good blender. The only way I have found to get it fine is with a food processor, which I did not have when I first moved here but now use for the purpose.

There are two forms that you can buy it in, liquid or dry squares. I use both, each for different purposes. I have successfully melted the dry form in barbeque sauce and similar things but if you get it too hot, say for candy making, it is really strange and seems to separate and get harder. The liquid form works fairly well too and is much easier to deal with. I made a gingerbread house with it for Christmas and I use it more often than the dry. 

Here is how to make your own brown sugar.

Check out my other Diy Basic Ingredient Post How To Make Sour Cream and Crème Fraîche with 2 Ingredients