Boiling Sugar to Different Degrees
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Dissolve the sugar in water over heat.
Boil for 1 minute after the sugar is dissolved.
Remove from heat and skim off any scum.
Boil again briefly.
Test the stage
Dip the tip of your forefinger into the syrup and touch your thumb.
If the sugar forms a fine thread that breaks easily when you separate your fingers, it is at the small thread stage.
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
- Forms the syrup and, as it cooks, the thread and candy stages that define the final texture.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can be heated evenly into a syrup.
The step that matters
Testing the thread stage. As water evaporates, the sugar concentration rises quickly, so the syrup moves from one stage to the next in moments. Testing too late can take it past the intended stage, changing the texture from soft to hard.
“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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