Dark Muscovado Sugar

Asked by montys. Answered on 10th December 2010

Full question

Hi, I'm in Australia and making one of the christmas cakes, the one with prunes and cocoa in it, out of the Christmas book of Nigella's and it uses muscovado sugar. I have looked in the supermarkets here and can't locate it. Would dark brown sugar work the same way and at the same measurement? Thanks Catherine

Our answer

Dark muscovado sugar is sometimes known as Barbados sugar so you may find it under this label in your supermarket. It is a very dark brown, moist sugar and it tastes slightly more of molasses/treacle than regular brown sugar.

You can substitute a regular moist, dark brown sugar in lieu of the muscovado. If you are measuring by weight then just switch dark brown sugar in for the muscovado. If you are using a packed cup measure then muscovado is slightly coarser than brown sugar so packs less firmly - therefore you will need to reduce the cup measure for regular brown sugar by 1 tablespoon per cup (measure the brown sugar in the cup then just scoop out 1 x 15ml tablespoon before adding the sugar o the bowl). If you have some molasses handy then you can also switch 1 tablespoon of the brown sugar in the recipe for 1 tablespoon of molasses.