Caramel for Coloring Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
Combine 4 pounds of sugar and 1 tablespoon of water in a saucepan.
Stir constantly over heat until the mixture turns a bright dark brown color, being careful not to let it burn.
Finish and store
Add 1 teacup of hot water and a little salt, then let it boil for a few more minutes.
Cool the mixture, strain it, and store it in a tightly corked bottle.
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
- Sugar
- Caramelizes under heat to provide the dark brown color, deep flavor and sweetness of the caramel.
- Hot water
- Dissolves the caramel into a pourable liquid that can be added to the soup.
The step that matters
Stirring until dark brown without burning. Sugar caramelizes in a narrow window. Once it passes the deep brown stage it burns and turns bitter, and constant stirring helps heat evenly so one spot does not scorch while the rest is still pale.
“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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