Bread is a miraculous thing. It's delicious, it gives you energy, it softens your cookies, and it can help you de-clump your brown sugar.

Simply put your sugar in a microwavable container (read: NOT plastic) and place a slice of bread on top. Seal the container and pop in the microwave for 15 seconds.

Voila. The moisture from the bread and the resulting steam will make the sugar softer and more pliable, allowing you to work on the clumps (as seen in the highly scientific "cookie osmosis" chart above).

via [lifehacker]

You're baking cookies and you reach to the back of your cabinet only to find that your brown sugar is hard as a rock. Don't head to the grocery store just yet.

I know we've all done it. You're right in the middle of making something and you realize that you don't have a necessary ingredient. Well if that ingredient is brown sugar, you may be in luck.

If you happen to have granulated sugar and molasses, you can make brown sugar. I've never actually measured the amounts before, as I generally just add molasses until I like the results. But I think it'd be 1-2 tablespoons of molasses to a cup of sugar, if you feel you need measurements.

This can be a big help in a pinch. If you don't have any of these staples, well, I guess this wouldn't be much use to you. But you never know when a tip might come in handy.

Sarah has already showed you chocolate chip cookies topped with bacon, so why not something called Pig Candy?

It comes from Bucky's Barbecue and Bread, and they suggest that you serve it as an appetizer at your next Christmas party. Basically, it's strips of bacon covered in dark brown sugar and cayenne, cooked in an over, grill or in a smoker.

I have this filed under "Appetizers" but I guess you could try it for breakfast too.

[via Serious Eats]

I've met a lot of people who love bananas but hate banana bread. I guess I can understand that. I love peas but hate pea soup, and I hate anchovies but I like Caesar Salad. Different forms, different flavors.

So I doubt that banana bread haters would want to try this recipe. It's for the A-Number-1 Banana Cake, and you can check it out over at the new and improved AOL Food. Recipe after the jump.

When a book goes so far as to put the phrase "from family and friends" in the title, you know it is going to be the type of book that a home cook can relate to. After all, we are generally cooking for our family and friends, aren't we? Brown Sugar: Soul Food Desserts from Family and Friends is the sort of cookbook that makes you want to cook for your loved ones, in addition to providing you with plenty of recipes that will put smiles on their faces.

The book is about soul food desserts and is, in fact, a follow-up to the author's previous work on that subject. The recipes have been collected from all over the country, so there is no regional bias towards any specific area, but the thread that connects everything is the "homespun style of African-American cuisine sprinkled with a healthy dose of brown sugar" - and while that sounds like a metaphor, there is quite literally brown sugar in just about every recipe in the book. They are all written in a casual, friendly style and are easy to follow. Some of the recipes include Raisin Oatmeal Cookies, Orange Buttermilk Pie and Burnt Sugar Ice Cream.

Actually, the whole name of this dessert from HGTV is Pumpkin-Ginger Cake with Cinnamon-Bourbon Caramel Glaze. While you might want to leave out the Bourbon part (1/4 cup) for little Jimmy and little Kathy, the cake itself sounds great.

Cake:

1 box spice cake mix
1 box devil's food cake mix
two 16 oz. pumpkin
2 tbs. cloves
2 tbs. cinnamon
2 tbs nutmeg
whipped topping

Glaze:

1 1/4 sticks of butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/8 cup corn syrup
allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg
2/3 cup heavy cream

Piloncillo is an unrefined sugar that is commonly used in Mexican cooking. The sugar has been around for at least 500 years, and was being made before the Spanish came to Mexico around 1500. It is made when sugar canes are crushed, the juice is collected and boiled then poured into molds, where it hardens into blocks. The fact that it comes in block form is one of the reasons why white and brown sugars are more commonly used, even in Mexican cooking, than piloncillo once was. To use it, it must be grated or chiseled off the main block - a process which is well worth the resulting flavor boost in food to some, but too time consuming for others to bother.

Unlike white sugar, which is flat and one-dimensional in its sweet flavor, piloncillo is smoky, caramely and earthy. It has far more flavor than brown sugar, which is generally just white sugar with a small amount of molasses added back to it. It can be uses in moles and other sauces, as well as to simple sweeten coffee or top off buttery toast. In most applications, it must be melted down to be incorporated into recipes. You can find piloncillo in many Mexican or Latin American grocery stores or order it online.

What is a birthday party without a birthday cake? A disappointing celebration, that's what. Any dessert can be appropriate for a birthday if you stick a candle on top, but a lovely cake doesn't need candles to be appropriate - especially if the birthday boy/girl doesn't want to think about how many candles should be topping of that cake. This cake recipe is from Cooking Light and is a lovely, easy-to-make layer cake.

The cake itself is light and moist, and the frosting is fantastic. The brown sugar mix melts in your mouth and develops a slight crunch on the outside as it sets. I had to double the original recipe to make enough frosting to cover the cake and a tiny bit left over that was a great dip for some pretzel sticks. I would make the icing alone again and serve dipped pretzels as a salty-sweet snack food, but I wouldn't hesitate to make the whole cake again, either. I just need another occasion.

What do you get when you combine 2,000 coconuts, 1.5 tons of brown sugar and half a ton of ground glutinous rice? The world's largest calamay.

The 2.5-ton sticky rice treat was recently unveiled in Candon City in the Philippines. It's the country's effort to topple the Guinness World Record for the largest sticky rice cake, which is currently held by the city of Niigata, Japan. To give some idea of the scale of this sugary treat consider that in an average day a calamay vendor uses some 55 pounds of glutinous rice. Oh, in case you're wondering, the one pictured above is not the Guinness contender.