Caramel for Custards
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
Heat ½ pound of brown sugar gradually in a small iron frying pan or kettle.
Stir with a knife or flat stick until melted and smooth, with only a slight color change.
Slowly add the hot water, mixing thoroughly.
Let it simmer for a few minutes, scraping down any sugar that sticks to the sides.
Finish and serve
Stir in the remaining pound of sugar and let it boil until clear.
Chill the caramel on ice before pouring it over a cold steamed custard.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Brown sugar
- Provides the sweetness and molasses flavor, and melts into the syrup that forms the sauce.
- Hot water
- Dissolves the melted sugar into a smooth, pourable liquid sauce.
The step that matters
Slowly add the hot water. Adding liquid to very hot sugar can make it spatter and seize into hard lumps. Pouring it in slowly while stirring lets the sugar dissolve evenly into a smooth syrup.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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