is brown sugar necessary for cookies

Sugar. Its an integral ingredient in just about every cookie recipe, and understanding its real power is the key to becoming a true cookie master. Trending Videos

When you consider all the things sugar does for a cookie, fixating on sweetness is like remembering Albert Einstein as that guy with the crazy hair. Both features are endearing to the masses, perhaps, but irrelevant compared to the subjects true importance.

So, aside from its obvious sweetness, what else does sugar do in a cookie? For starters, its the basic building block of any dough, establishing the overall pH. How it combines with other ingredients determines the cookies volume and density. Sugar also attracts water from the dough, interfering with gluten formation, protein coagulation, and gelatinization of starch—even bacterial development! We toss out spotty bread all the time, but when was the last time you saw a bag of moldy cookies?

And, yeah, its pretty sweet: White granulated sugar is 99% pure sucrose. But thats not the only sugar youre likely to find in a cookie dough. Brown sugar—in particular, light brown sugar—is frequently found on cookie ingredient lists. So, how does each one impact the final cookie? Lets find out.

Meet the Two Sugars

Granulated sugar is colorless, odorless, and neutral in flavor, allowing the flavors of other ingredients to come to the fore. Then again, with heat and time, it can caramelize into something complex and deliciously bitter. Its best friend is salt, though most dessert recipes dont pair them as often as they should.

Light brown sugar, more versatile than dark brown sugar, is roughly 95% sucrose. Its sweetness is tempered by the addition of bitter molasses, which contributes fructose, glucose, amino acids, and minerals, too. Those chemical agents can smoke and burn during caramelization, but also undergo the Maillard reaction, developing increasingly rich and complex flavors. Brown sugar is acidic, which means its best friend is alkaline baking soda; when combined, they activate, Wonder Twins–style, to produce carbon dioxide.

Both sugars are hygroscopic, so they compete with flour to soak up moisture from the dough, but brown more so than white. Fun fact: Its hygro-, not hydro-, because “hygro-” refers to ambient moisture rather than liquid water. (Fun-fact fun fact: Brown sugar is so hygroscopic that it has fewer calories per ounce thanks to its hoarded moisture.)

White and brown sugars can be swapped without fuss in any recipe where the chemistry isnt important. So… not very many recipes, to be honest. And certainly nothing so complex as a cookie, however simple and sweet it seems.

Considering the number of variables, its impossible to say things like “White sugar makes cookies thin and crisp,” or “Brown sugar makes cookies thick and chewy.” I mean, I could, but then Id be wrong half the time.

Brown sugar makes my sugar cookies spread thin and keeps my oatmeal cookies from spreading at all; it makes both of them extra chewy. It also adds flavor to my crispy gingersnaps. White sugar turns my oatmeal cookies crisp and thin, and keeps my sugar cookies soft and thick.

Those statements only sound contradictory when you think of sugar as a static ingredient, something that just sits in a bowl. They make perfect sense when you realize that sugar is an active participant in every recipe, an essential element of technique.

Brown and white sugars have unique strengths and weaknesses that can be leveraged (or squandered) to achieve any texture, so its not a question of what they do for a cookie, but how.

How Sugars Behave in Dough

In recipes that involve baking soda, the primary role of acidic brown sugar is to react with sodium bicarbonate and produce carbon dioxide, making cookies thick, puffy, and soft (cakey at first, then crunchy if they continue to bake). Neutral white sugar cant participate in that reaction, so cookies are comparatively thin, dense, and crisp (chewy if kept from browning).

In recipes that call for creaming butter with sugar until light and fluffy, the primary role of sugar is to assist in mechanical leavening. In that role, white sugar aerates the dough when creamed with butter for thick and puffy cookies. Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that theres less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more. With less moisture escaping via steam, they also stay moist and chewy.

In recipes that involve soft or melted butter, sugar can play a critical role in gluten development by acting as a tenderizer, but white and brown sugars arent the same in that regard, either. White sugar, with its neutral pH, interferes with gluten development, allowing the dough to spread more before it sets. The result is cookies that are thin and tender/crisp. Acidic brown sugar, on the other hand, speeds gluten formation and egg protein coagulation, so the dough sets quickly, making cookies thick and tender/chewy.

The vast majority of our favorite recipes will meet at least one of these conditions, so theyre useful in predicting how sugar substitutions will impact a cookies texture, for better or for worse.

Best Brown Sugar Cookies

Is brown sugar good for cookies?

One of brown sugar’s superpowers lies in its softness and moistness. Unlike its granulated counterpart, brown sugar has higher moisture content, which means it adds a delightful chewiness to your cookies. So, if you’re a fan of moist, melt-in-your-mouth cookies, brown sugar is your secret weapon.

Can one substitute brown sugar for white sugar in a brownie recipe?

In most baking recipes, you can substitute brown sugar for white sugar in the same proportion. So, if your recipe includes one cup white sugar, you may substitute it for one cup brown sugar. Others ingredients to replace one cup of white or brown sugar can be: 3/4 cup of honey, or 3/4 cups of maple syrup, 2/3 cup of agave or one teaspoon stevia.

Why do cookies have brown sugar?

Moisture – Brown sugar in a cookie recipe helps keep the cookies moist and chewy Leavening – It also helps the cookies to puff up when baked. As brown sugar contains an acid that reacts with baking soda that is used in a cookie recipe Taste – brown sugar adds a specific butterscotch flavor to the cookies when baked

What if I don’t have brown sugar in my cookies?

If you find that your situation is that you do not have any brown sugar to add to your cookies, there are a few ways that you can recreate the brown sugar without needing to make a special trip to the store. In fact, you can make your own brown sugar at home, if you really want to.