Baking and cooking with brown sugar results in some of our favorite dishes and treats. Another, more unfortunate side effect that usually comes along with it? Frustration— thanks to hardened, impossible-to-scoop sugar. While there are tricks and special gadgets designed to keep brown sugar soft, those things don’t really help when it’s already hardened. What does help? This trick from Real Simple. Watch, learn, and never fear hardened brown sugar again!

So did you catch that simple method? All you need to do is:

1. Put the block of hard sugar in a bowl and sprinkle with a few teaspoons of water.
2. Cover with a damp paper towel and microwave in 30 second intervals until the sugar is soft.

That’s it! How easy is that? Have you ever used this trick before? Do you have your own methods for softening brown sugar?