Published July 1, 2004. From Cook's Illustrated.
Can this be used interchangeably with traditional light brown sugar?
Infrequent bakers often find a hard, sugary brick in their pantry when they reach for brown sugar. A new product aims to alleviate this problem. Domino Brownulated is a granulated, pourable light brown sugar with a light, dry texture. Readers wondered if it could be used interchangeably with traditional light brown sugar.
To find out, we made two batches of Thin, Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies, the first with traditional light brown sugar and the second with Brownulated. The first batch of cookies was sweeter and crisper than the second, which were drier, cakier, and less sweet. We quickly figured out why the two batches were so different. We had measured by volume, and the lighter, airier Brownulated sugar was taking up more room in the measuring cup than the damp traditional light brown sugar, which we packed as we measured it.
It turns out that 1 cup of Brownulated sugar weighs just 5 ounces, whereas 1 cup of packed regular brown sugar weighs 7 ounces. Once we used equal amounts of the sugars by weight, the cookies were similar. Use this equivalency to determine how much Brownulated sugar is needed in any given recipe.
