How To Soften Hard White Sugar

Have you ever gone to grab your bag of white sugar only to find it has hardened into a solid mass?

It can be frustrating when you’re in the middle of baking or need to sweeten your coffee. Fortunately, softening hard white sugar is a simple process that you can do at home with just a few easy steps.

In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at how to soften hard white sugar and get it back to its fluffy and granular state. Whether you’re an experienced baker or just starting out, these tips will ensure that you never waste a bag of sugar again.

Why Does White Sugar Get Hard?

Before going through softened sugar methods, let’s find out why white sugar can get hard in the first place.

White sugar or granulated sugar is a type of sugar used popularly in baking because its crystals don’t attach, giving a smooth texture for cakes.

Unfortunately, like powdered sugar, coarse sugar, or brown sugar, white sugar can get clumpy and hard if exposed to moisture.

The reason is that moisture can wet the sugar crystals and make them stick together. When the air dries out all the humidity, the white sugar will form a dense structure and become hardened.

Normally, in supermarkets, the sugar comes with a plastic package that can become torn easily, creating a higher risk for the air to penetrate inside.

Therefore, whenever we go shopping for white sugar, we always secure it by pouring it into an air-tight jar.

How To Soften Hard White Sugar

As we have learned, white sugar can get hardened if it exposes to moisture and humidity. Some people tend to leave those sugar clumps there, but it is a waste as sugar is unusable for years.

If you encounter those hard white sugar clumps, you can learn how to remove moisture from white sugar with these methods.

Microwave Method

One day, you suddenly find your sugar gone hard in the bag. Don’t worry!

A microwave oven is possibly the easiest solution to the question of how to unclump granulated sugar. Microwaves can heat your hard sugar clumps and break the hard structure, like melting Kraft caramels.

How to Soften Sugar in a Microwave

The key to using a microwave for softening hard white sugar is not to overheat and melt it. Here are the steps you can do for the microwave method:

Step 1. Put your white sugar in a microwave-safe bowl. (Preferably glass)

Step 2. Wet the white sugar with water mist.

Step 3. Put the bowl in the microwave and set to a high temperature.

Step 4. Take the bowl out after 5 minutes and check the white sugar status. If the hard white sugar is easy to get broken, use a spoon to tap on clumps to even it out.

If the white sugar is still hard, let it cool off first before putting it in the microwave again. Repeat this until the hard sugar is easy for you to break.

Food Processor Method

A food processor is a cooking tool for chopping and mincing food into small pieces. That’s why it is perfect for breaking hard white sugar clumps that are not as hard as a rock.

How to Soften Sugar in A Food Processor

Step 1. Fill up 50% of the food processor capacity.

Step 2. Switch the device on a few times. However, you need to avoid using too-strong mode and turn the white sugar into a powdered type.

Wet Paper Towel Method

Wet tower may sound out of topic to you, but trust us, it is quite effective for softening hard white sugar. This method will help bring the moisture to chunks of hard sugar, so its structure can be broken down naturally.

How to Soften Sugar with a Wet Paper Towel

Step 1. Spray a bit of water on the paper towel

Step 2. Pour the hard sugar chunks into a jar

Step 3. Cover the hard sugar surface with the wet paper and close the jar. Leave the jar overnight, so the moisture from the wet paper can penetrate the hard white sugar texture.

Step 4. In the morning, open the jar and remove the wet paper.

Step 5. Use a spoon to crack those hard sugar to the texture that you want.

Apple Method

Using apples for softening hard white sugar is a method that functions similarly to the wet paper method. However, this approach is more natural and healthier.

With the natural juice from apples, the hard white sugar can absorb the moisture and recover to its normal appearance.

How to Soften Sugar with an Apple

Step 1. Slice an apple and remove its core.

Step 2. Place the apple slices on top of the white sugar surface. Normally, it only takes four slices of apple to moisten a small amount of sugar clumps.

Step 3. Close the jar and leave it overnight at a dry place.

Step 4. In the morning, remove the apple slices in the jar.

Step 5. Use a spoon to break the granules in your sugar.

Food Steamer Method

Food steamer is a perfect answer to the question “how to soften white sugar without a microwave?”. The heat from steaming will help soften any stubborn sugar texture and allow the sugar to diversify its form.

How to Soften Sugar with a Food Steamer

This way can use to soften rock-hard white sugar.

Step 1. Pour the hardened sugar into a microwaveable bowl.

Step 2. Fill a pot with half a liter of water. Then put the pot on high heat.

Step 3. Insert the sugar bowl in the pot and ensure the water level doesn’t reach half of the bowl’s height.

Step 4. Cover your pot to let the steam focus on your sugar bowl.

Step 5. Boil the water for 5-7 minutes. Check on the water from time to time and add more water if the pot is drained.

Step 6. Use the spoon to test the texture of sugar.

Step 7. When the sugar becomes easier to break down, turn off the heat, and remove the bowl out.

Pestle Method

Pestle is another method that uses force to break down the hardened sugar. However, it can leave some mess, so you might need to do this in a kitchen. If you prefer your sugar ready for your hot tea, this is a good way to soften hard white sugar.

How to Soften Sugar with a Pestle

Step 1. Pour the hard sugar in a large bowl.

Step 2. Sprinkle some water on your sugar.

Step 3. Use a dishcloth to cover the sugar surface. This helps avoid excessive sugar plunging outside the bowl.

Step 4. Use the pestle to hit constantly to break the sugar.

Step 5. Pound it until the sugar is evenly broken into a crumbly and creamy texture.

Coffee Grinder Method

You might think a coffee grinder is just for coffee beans, but it can help in this situation. There are many types of coffee grinder, but their function is mostly the same.

Once the coffee beans are inside, the sharp cutting blades oppositely cut the beans until they become coarsely ground. That’s why using a coffee grinder to soften the hard-white sugar is so effective.

How to Soften Sugar with a Coffee Grinder

Step 1. Pour the white sugar into the coffee grinder.

Step 2. Consider the capacity of the grinder. If you overload it, the machine cannot handle and may break down.

Step 3. Switch on the machine and pay attention to the sugar. If you leave the machine running long enough, the sugar might become powdered.

What Are Some Tips To Prevent White Sugar From Getting Hard?

Hardened sugar is a common phenomenon if you get it exposed to moisture for too long.

Even though there are many ways you can restore your granulated white sugar stage, it is better to learn how to store white sugar properly as a prevention. So, how to keep the sugar soft? 

The best way to how to keep sugar from hardening is to put them in an airtight container. The container is a perfect protection, preventing the air from touching your sugar and damaging it.

You can even use a dark container to keep the heat out if you need extra protection.

Another way to keep your sugar from hardened is by placing it in a refrigerator. The cool temperature will keep it from the heat of the sun and the moisture.

However, once you have placed sugar in the fridge, you should consider it a permanent storage place. If you put the sugar inside the fridge and then leave it outside for a long time, the temperature change might alter the sugar’s normal moisture.

Lastly, a slice of bread can also help your sugar remain in its form. No matter where you store your sugar, you can prevent the rise in humidity inside by placing a slice of bread in your sugar jar or container.

The bread will absorb all the excess moisture from the sugar.

However, the shelf life of bread is definite, and thus, it needs replacing after a few days.

Frequently Asked Questions

What food is white sugar used in?

White sugar is refined from sugarcane or sugar beets. After harvesting them, the resulting juice will be boiled and the moisture removed. Then, the liquid will crystallize into the natural sucrose.

Nowadays, white sugar is the most common sweetener that is found in every kitchen. You can use it in making beverages, coffee, cereal, sweetened cakes and cookies, yogurt, tomato sauce, icings, syrups, other desserts, ​and salad dressing to add flavor.

White sugar also makes chemical reactions in cooking that can occur during cooking and baking to create a complex, nutty flavor and attractive color for your foods like meringues, caramel, mousses, and custards.

White sugar also absorbs moisture in some other foods to get them more soft and supple.

In sum, white sugar plays an essential role in our diet that provides vital nutrients that help a healthy body and prevent disease.

If sugar gets hard, is it still good?

Sugar tends to clump after you store it for a while because its natural moisture evaporates when exposed to the elements of the kitchen.

Some people do not know if sugar gets tricky. Is it safe to consume? Luckily, when sugar is from damp sand to brick, it is not harmful and still safe to eat, but it may not be easy to measure it accurately for a recipe if it is not soft and grainy again.

Although some methods are used to soften sugar and return moisture to the sugar, the vital thing you should note down is that you store it properly.

How to make brown sugar soft again

There are five easy methods to make your brown sugar soften. Depending on what way and how fast you want the fixed brown sugar to use in your recipe, I arranged for you from the simplest to more complex; choose one of them.

1. How to soften brown sugar with an apple.

Put an apple slice in your rigid brown sugar box for one day. In that time, brown sugar will absorb the moisture from the apple slice and be soft again.

2. How to soften brown sugar with new white bread.

Like the apple slice putting method, your job is to put a slice of new white bread into an airtight hard sugar container in about one day. Subsequently, the bread becomes dry and crumbles to absorb the moisture.

3. How to soften brown sugar with terracotta.

Making soft brown sugar by terra cotta is a clever solution. The earthenware piece is soaked in water for about 25 minutes before putting it in an airtight container of dried-out sugar. In one day, the terra cotta will maintain an ideal moisture level to help sugar soften.

4. How to soften brown sugar in the oven.

Turn on your oven until the heat is to 250° F before putting the complex sugar oven-safe bowl in for some minutes until you realize the sugar is soft.

5. How to soften brown sugar in the microwave.

Put the complex brown sugar in a safe bowl, then cover it with a wet towel. You heat it in the microwave for 15 seconds to make the sugar lump break up.

Tip:

• With ways 1 and 2, you should remember to remove the apple slice and bread away from brown sugar.
• With ways 4 and 5, you do not put it too long because the sugar can melt, and maybe the sugar will be very hot, so be careful.

Conclusion

We love baking sweet cakes and treats for our family. But baking is not only about making cakes, but also preserving the materials and ingredients for future use. White sugar is a great ingredient for baking and cooking.

Thus, it is important to learn how to soften hard white sugar and how to keep white sugar from hardening, so you can continue to use it for a long period.