We try to stay healthy around here, we try to eat healthy around here. NOTE: THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT HEALTH AND IS NOT DIRECTLY RELATED TO RAW MILK. One of the other important factors of raw milk (and any food in general) is good flavor and a pleasant taste. To be completely honest, this is one of the main reasons I love raw milk: the flavor. It just tastes SO much better than pasteurized milk.

But what, pray tell, am I talking about with dark brown sugar? Confession: I never before thought about substituting anything for my normal, white sugar. It just never crossed my mind. It wasn’t that I didn’t think you could (or maybe I did think that…? I don’t know now) but I just never did.

Rewind to about 2 months ago. I’m baking cookies. Peanut butter cookies to be exact. We love peanut butter cookies but generally, they are almost too sweet. I think it’s probably because peanut butter is fairly sweet on its own. The recipe I use calls for half a cup of brown sugar and half a cup of white sugar. I had just been to our local mennonite grocery store (we shop there often cause we live in the boondocks and it’s the closest grocery store to us. 5 min as opposed to 35 min) Anyway, I was out of “regular” brown sugar (aka: light brown) and decided to try dark brown sugar instead. In the last few years, I’ve discovered that I tend to like things that use molasses and that “dark” things tend to have a deeper, richer flavor. Dark brown sugar is no exception to the rule here. While mixing the dough for the cookies, I added my dark brown sugar first….And then it occurred to me, why don’t I just use brown sugar for the whole recipe? I like things to taste very flavorful. I like deep, rich flavor. What could it hurt? Well…it hurt my enjoyment of white sugar. The cookies came out amazing. The over-sweetness was completely gone and the cookies just tasted better.

After this positive experience, I decided to start substituting dark brown sugar whenever a recipe called for sugar. Tried it in cheesecake, cookies, asian cuisine, pudding, etc. it just seems to make everything taste better. AND there’s the added benefit that it isn’t bleached. But honestly, I mostly was just happy the flavor is so much better.

Just to add a little extra blurb, this is 100% true for honey as well. Our local mennonite grocery store carries honey from a local apiary that produces clover honey (traditional, light, tasty honey) as well as wild flower honey (very dark, thick and rich in flavor, but not overly sweet). I’ve also switched us to wild flower honey for the most part because I LOVE that dark, rich flavor.
So the next time you’re baking, try something bold and use all brown sugar. And give dark brown sugar a try too!
~JoAnna