Brown sugar substitutes, and how to make your own

Brown sugar is white sugar with molasses in it, which is why the best substitute is the two of them mixed. Everything else on the list changes the bake in some way, and the swaps sold as healthier mostly save calories by putting less sugar in, not by being a different kind of sugar.

How to make brown sugar

Stir 1 tablespoon of molasses into 1 cup of white sugar for light brown sugar, or 2 tablespoons for dark. America’s Test Kitchen pulses the two in a food processor; a fork and a few minutes of mashing get you there too. Or skip the mixing and add the molasses with the recipe’s wet ingredients, which the test kitchen suggests as well (America’s Test Kitchen). The calculator above does the sum for any amount.

The ratio is not settled. King Arthur’s guide to sugars uses 2 teaspoons per cup (King Arthur), and Martha Stewart’s kitchen 1 1/2 tablespoons, with 1/4 cup for dark (Martha Stewart). The tablespoon sits between them. If you weigh, Stella Parks at Serious Eats makes the case for 10% molasses by weight, taken out of the sugar rather than added to it: 180 g of white sugar and 20 g of molasses for 200 g of brown sugar. Her point is that the cup-and-tablespoon method comes out a little light, closer to 9%, and cookies notice (Serious Eats).

Use regular molasses. Blackstrap is bitter and should only go where a recipe names it, as both of those sources warn. With no molasses at all, maple syrup or honey can take its place, as Jessica Gavin suggests (Jessica Gavin), though the result tastes of them rather than of brown sugar.

Can you use white sugar instead of brown sugar?

Yes, cup for cup, and the sweetness does not change. What changes is the look and the texture (Iowa State University Extension). Brown sugar is slightly acidic and holds on to moisture, so without it a bake comes out a little paler, drier and plainer.

In cakes, sauces and marinades that barely shows. Cookies are where it does. Brown sugar’s acid reacts with baking soda, and white sugar cannot, so in a cookie leavened with soda the dough spreads out thin and dense, and tastes flatter. Stella Parks suggests an extra pinch of salt to make up some of the difference (Serious Eats). If you are also short of soda, baking soda substitutes covers what the acid in brown sugar does to each swap.

The other way round works too: brown sugar for white, cup for cup, packed. The bake comes out softer, moister and darker. Nigella’s kitchen suggests keeping it to moist or strongly flavoured bakes, such as brownies, coffee or chocolate cakes, because in a vanilla sponge the brown sugar’s flavour takes over (Nigella).

Which substitute for cookies

Homemade brown sugar, with the full measure of molasses. It behaves most like the real thing, since it is the real thing. After that:

• White sugar gives thinner, crisper, paler cookies, as above.
• Maple syrup or honey make a softer, moister cookie. King Arthur warns that liquid sweeteners in a recipe that creams butter and sugar give a moister, denser result (King Arthur).
• Sugar-free blends made cookies that barely spread and baked up dry and cakey in King Arthur’s side-by-side test, which comes further down.

Dark or light brown sugar: does it matter?

Rarely. Dark brown sugar has more molasses, so it colours the bake a shade darker and tastes stronger, but King Arthur finds the difference hard to see in baked goods, and the two weigh the same, so swap them freely by cup or by gram (King Arthur). When a recipe just says brown sugar, it almost always means light.

Maple syrup or honey instead of brown sugar

Both work, with three adjustments, because they are liquid and brown faster than sugar does.

• Maple syrup: 3/4 cup per cup of sugar, 2 to 4 tablespoons less of the recipe’s other liquid, 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda unless the recipe already has buttermilk or sour cream, and the oven 25F lower, about 14C (Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Association). King Arthur swaps it cup for cup instead, finding it about as sweet as sugar.
• Honey: a generous 3/4 cup per cup, with 3 to 4 tablespoons less liquid, or 3 to 4 tablespoons more flour in a recipe with no liquid to cut (King Arthur). The National Honey Board starts more cautiously, with honey for up to half the sugar, and also lowers the oven by 25F (National Honey Board).

Neither is the lighter choice it is often sold as. Used at 3/4 cup, honey saves about 60 calories on each cup of brown sugar it replaces, which is almost nothing, and maple syrup about 220, because it carries fewer calories per gram than honey does. The table above has the numbers, and the sweet potato casserole compares all three by the quarter cup. Choose them for the flavour, which is a good reason on its own.

Coconut sugar: the same sugar, a lighter cup

Coconut sugar tastes of toffee and swaps well, and King Arthur swaps the two by weight (King Arthur). Gram for gram it is no lighter: a typical label lists 15 calories and 4 g of sugar in a 4 g teaspoon (USDA), the same as white sugar.

Measured by the cup it looks lighter, and that is where the healthy reputation comes from. A cup of coconut sugar weighs about 154 g by King Arthur’s chart, against 220 g for a packed cup of brown sugar by USDA’s, so a cup-for-cup swap carries about 580 calories to brown sugar’s 836. That is less sugar, not a different sugar, and the bake will be less sweet for it.

Its low glycemic index is real but modest. The University of Sydney’s glycemic index service measured it at 54, just inside the low band (Glycemic Index Foundation). The figure of 35 printed on many packs comes from a single study of 10 people in the Philippines (Foodwatch).

Sugar-free and keto brown sugar substitutes

Most fall into one of two kinds, and they are not the same thing.

• Erythritol and allulose blends, such as Swerve Brown, measure cup for cup like brown sugar and list zero calories and 0 g of sugar a serving (Swerve). These are the sugar-free ones.
• Sucralose blends, such as Splenda Brown Sugar Blend, are sugar and molasses with sucralose added, used at half the amount, for half the calories and sugar (Splenda). By USDA’s figures for this kind of blend, the half cup carries about 367 calories and 92 g of carbohydrate (USDA). Lighter, but not sugar-free and not keto.

Neither bakes like sugar. When King Arthur baked cookies, brownies and a cake with two erythritol sweeteners, the cookies barely spread and came out dry and cakey, the brownies were hard and dry, the cake was dense and rubbery, and some left an odd, cool aftertaste. Only low-sugar scones came through well. The tester’s conclusion was that simply cutting the sugar in a recipe works better than swapping it (King Arthur). That was 2020, with the formulas of the day, and allulose blends have arrived since, but it is still the honest starting point: try less brown sugar before you reach for a replacement.

One caution on erythritol. In a study funded by the NIH and published in Nature Medicine in 2023, people with the highest blood levels of erythritol were about twice as likely to have a heart attack or stroke, or to die, over three years as those with the lowest (NIH). That is an association, not proof that erythritol caused it, as the researchers point out (Cleveland Clinic), but if you have heart disease or several of its risk factors, it is a reason not to make erythritol blends an everyday habit.

Brown sugar substitutes for diabetics

Honey, maple syrup, coconut sugar and agave are not diabetic swaps. The American Diabetes Association notes that sugar, honey, syrups and agave all carry fast-acting carbohydrate that can raise blood sugar quickly, while sugar substitutes add sweetness with few or no carbs (American Diabetes Association).

So the swaps that help are the ones above: an erythritol, allulose or sucralose product where the recipe tolerates it, or a smaller amount of real brown sugar where it does not. A sucralose blend at half the amount halves the sugar, which still counts. The association’s advice is to agree how much you use with your healthcare team, and that is mine too.

Muscovado, demerara and soft brown sugar

In Britain the bags say light or dark soft brown sugar, which is what Americans call brown sugar: refined sugar with molasses added back, usually beet sugar there (Ragus). Swap it for any American recipe’s brown sugar directly.

• Muscovado is less refined cane sugar that keeps more of its own molasses, so it is darker, stickier and stronger. It swaps for brown sugar in either direction (King Arthur), and Nigella’s kitchen uses it interchangeably with light and dark brown sugar in baking.
• Demerara, and turbinado in the US, has big, dry crystals. It is lovely on top of a crumble or a muffin, but the crystals do not dissolve into a dough, so it should not stand in for soft brown sugar inside a bake (Nigella).
• Black treacle is the British stand-in for molasses when you make your own. It is molasses blended with refiner’s syrup, so a little sweeter and less bitter (Ragus). Use it in the same amounts, and expect a slightly milder result.

If your brown sugar has gone hard

You may not need a substitute at all. Brown sugar hardens as the moisture in its molasses evaporates, so the fix is to put moisture back rather than to chip at it (Sugar Association).

• In a hurry: put the sugar in a microwave-safe bowl, lay two wet but not dripping paper towels over it, cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap, and microwave on high for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Fork it apart and use it straight away: it is hot, and it hardens again as it cools, so soften only what you need (Domino Sugar).
• With time: seal it in a container with a slice or two of bread, a couple of large marshmallows, a soaked terracotta disc, or damp paper towels laid on a piece of foil. It softens in about two days (C&H Sugar).

Kept in an airtight container, it stays soft.

In rubs, glazes and sauces

Savoury cooking forgives almost any swap. Maple syrup and honey make good glazes for chicken, pork and salmon, but both brown faster than sugar, so brush them on towards the end. In a dry rub, white sugar with a few drops of molasses rubbed through it, or coconut sugar, keeps the rub dry. And for sweet soy sauce, soy sauce substitutes simmers soy sauce with dark brown sugar until it turns syrupy.