To Boil Sugar for Clear Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Dissolve the sugar
Combine sugar and water in a saucepan and stir well before boiling to prevent burning.
Once dissolved, stop stirring.
Boil and test
When the mixture boils and fine bubbles appear, test it by dropping a little from a fork into cold water.
If it snaps like glass between your teeth, it has reached the crack stage and is ready for candy making.
If boiled longer, it will turn yellow and reach the caramel stage.
Remove it from heat immediately to avoid burning.
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
- Granulated sugar
- Provides the sweetness and, when boiled to the crack stage, sets into a hard, glassy candy.
The step that matters
Stop at the crack stage. Sugar syrup changes quickly near the end of cooking. Boiling past the crack stage caramelises the sugar, turning it yellow and giving a bitter taste, so the test must be checked often and the pan removed from heat promptly.
“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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