Fluffy Brown Sugar Icing {Pat's Recipes} (2024)

FAQs

Can I use brown sugar instead of powdered sugar for icing? ›

Brown sugar cream cheese frosting: Replacing one cup of powdered sugar with brown sugar in a standard cream cheese buttercream recipe adds creamy caramel flavor. That makes a brown sugar cream cheese frosting a good accompaniment to carrot cake, red velvet cupcakes, or apple spice cake.

Usually it is grainy from the sugar not dissolving into the butter properly. One easy fix is to re-whip the frosting, preferably with the paddle attachment, on medium speed until it becomes smoother.

You can also whip in a few tablespoons of softened butter to replicate a homemade buttercream frosting. Another advantage of adding any of these dairy products to alter the consistency of the frosting is that they'll also dilute the sweetness of the canned frosting, which has a tendency to be intoxicatingly sweet.

If you don't have molasses on hand, you can easily swap it out for maple syrup with almost no change to your recipe's final product. Combine 1 cup (200 g) of granulated white sugar with 1 tbsp. (15 mL) of pure maple syrup to make a brown sugar substitute that can fool even the most sophisticated palette.

In most baking recipes, you can substitute brown sugar for white sugar in a one-to-one ratio. So, if your recipe calls for one cup of white sugar, swap one cup of brown sugar. The sweetness level will be the same, but the brown sugar may change the texture of your baked goods.

It is possible to simply use granulated sugar in a slightly smaller amount, though you'll have to accept that the texture may not be ideal, especially for icing or other recipes that are supposed to be super smooth. Just substitute 1 cup of granulated sugar for every 1 ¾ cups powdered sugar and proceed as directed.

The most obvious way to prevent brown sugar from getting hard is by storing it in an air-tight container. You want the container to be on the smaller side, so there's not too much air trapped inside—the shape doesn't really matter as long as it doesn't allow any air to pass through.

Wet a paper towel and wring it out so it's slightly damp. Cover the bowl with the damp paper towel and microwave in 10-second increments until the brown sugar is crumbly again, using a fork between intervals to help break up the sugar.

Empty the canned frosting into a large mixing bowl. Whip the frosting using an electric mixer (either hand mixer or stand mixer) for 2 to 3 minutes until fluffy and doubled in size. It's ready!

Always begin by scraping the frosting into a mixing bowl and stirring vigorously or mixing with a mixer until smooth and creamy. This simple step of incorporating air into a can of dense store-bought frosting will make it fluffy and enhance the flavor.

What to add to store-bought frosting to make it taste homemade? ›

(You know those raw sugar packets found in coffee shops? Yes, that's turbinado sugar.) It has a much larger grain than light brown or dark brown sugar and is drier than both. Don't substitute turbinado for light or dark brown sugar—that large grain size could throw off your recipe.

Can Karo^® Pancake Syrup be substituted for brown or granulated sugar in recipes? Although corn syrup and granulated sugars are both sweeteners, the added moisture in corn syrup means it isn't a simple substitution in baked goods, since those recipes demand a balance of dry and wet ingredients.

By the way, if you only have light brown sugar and need dark brown sugar for your recipe, just add 1 tablespoon of molasses to 1 cup of light brown sugar. Stir with a fork and keep in an airtight container.

Brown sugar is the addition of molasses to refined white sugar. Confectioner's or powdered sugar is finely ground white sugar with the addition of corn starch to prevent the newly fine sugar from clumping.

If you have run out of icing sugar or can't find any to buy, you can make your own by whizzing granulated or caster sugar in a food processor, powerful blender, standard blender, coffee or spice grinder, or more laboriously, in a mortar and pestle.