Brielle's Avalon

I hate it when my brown sugar dries up!  But I never have to throw it away again…when the old apple-slices trick doesn’t work. Once upon a time I had guests and eggs and bread and we thought it would be lovely to have French toast. As I set the table I realized I was out of syrup. Guests were disappointed. No worries, I grabbed the hard brown sugar I couldn’t bake with and briefly took up space at the stove. They were skeptical, but upon trying it they decided they’d never buy syrup again (barring, of course, the real thing: maple syrup). So if you have brown sugar that’s too hard to bake with, don’t throw it out. Save it for pancake/waffle/French toast/fritters/etc. meals.

brown sugar and water

Put the brown sugar in a small saucepan. Add about 1/2 c water for every cup of sugar. Stir over medium heat until it dissolves and bring it just to a boil.

Stir to dissolve

Bring to a boil

Set aside to cool until the breakfast is ready. If you want to add a pat of butter at this point that’s yummy, too. Just stir it in really good as it stops boiling and it’ll be fine. 

You don’t have to limit pancakes and such to breakfast, it’s just that that’s the most common meal at which these things are served.

Pour over French toast or whatever else you made and enjoy

Serve in a small pitcher/creamer or directly from the pan. You can store leftovers in a clean jar in the fridge for a few weeks.

If the syrup crystallizes just put it in a pant with a few spoonfuls of water, re-dissolve and bring just to a boil again, then use, cool and store. 

Now I suppose I’ll have to write up some recipes to use syrup on…maybe pancakes, waffles, French toast and fritters. Sigh…the burdens of the creative life…Oh, and that apple trick with hard brown sugar? You quarter an apple, take out the seeds and put it in the container with the brown sugar overnight. It’s not perfect but at least it works. Usually. If you don’t have a few hours to wait you’ll just have to run out for more, and don’t leave the apple in too long or it’ll become a science experiment.