Brown Sugar substitutes

1 cup granulated sugar + 1 tbsp molasses for light brown, 2 tbsp for dark; rub together with your fingers until it looks like damp sand

Keeps the sweetener, flavour, liquid and tenderizer roles.

This is precisely what brown sugar is, so it behaves identically. Rub it in properly or you get pockets of molasses in the dough.

1:1

Keeps the sweetener, flavour, liquid and tenderizer roles.

Wetter and considerably stronger in molasses flavour, dark muscovado especially. Break up the lumps before creaming.

1 cup granulated sugar + 1 tbsp maple syrup, rubbed in

Keeps the sweetener, flavour, liquid and tenderizer roles.

Paler in colour and flavour, and less acidic than molasses, so a soda-leavened bake may rise slightly less.

1:1

Keeps the sweetener, flavour and tenderizer roles; loses liquid.

Similar colour and caramel note but much drier, so it does not dissolve as readily into creamed butter and the crumb comes out a little sandier.

1:1 by volume

Keeps the sweetener role; loses flavour, liquid and tenderizer.

You lose the moisture, the caramel flavour and the acidity all at once. Cookies spread thinner and bake crisp instead of chewy, and soda-leavened recipes lose lift.

1:1, but blitz it briefly in a blender first

Keeps the sweetener and flavour roles; loses liquid and tenderizer.

The crystals are large and hard and will not dissolve into creamed butter, leaving a gritty texture unless you grind them down.

2/3 cup honey per 1 cup brown sugar; cut the recipe's other liquid by about 3 tbsp and drop the oven 15C / 25F

Keeps the sweetener, flavour and liquid roles; loses tenderizer.

A liquid sweetener replacing a dry one, so it changes the whole batter balance, and it browns much faster. The result is softer and cakier.