Caramel Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 360°F (182°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the caramel
Combine sugar and water in a kettle.
Stir continually and boil until it reaches 360°F (182°C) and turns orange, then brown.
Quickly pour onto a greased platter or slab.
Finish
Once cool, break into pieces and pulverize.
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 when heated, creating the brown color and characteristic toasted flavor.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar so it heats evenly and cooks down into syrup before caramelizing.
The step that matters
Boiling until orange, then brown. Sugar darkens quickly near the end of cooking, and the window between amber and burnt is narrow. Stirring keeps heat even so the sugar does not scorch in spots, and the target temperature signals the right degree of caramelization.
“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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