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To Boil Sugar for Clear Candy

This recipe describes boiling sugar and water to produce clear candy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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To Boil Sugar for Clear Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine the sugar and water in a copper kettle and stir well before boiling to prevent burning.

  2. Once dissolved, stop stirring.

  3. When the mixture boils and fine bubbles appear, test it by dropping a little into cold water.

Test the stage

  1. If it snaps like glass between your teeth, it has reached the 'crack' stage and is ready for candy making.

  2. If boiled longer, it will turn yellow and reach the caramel stage, which requires immediate removal from heat to avoid burning.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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
Forms the sugar syrup that cooks down into the hard, glassy candy structure.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so it can boil evenly and stir smoothly before thickening.

The step that matters

Removing the candy at the right stage. Sugar syrup darkens quickly once it passes the crack stage. Going past it turns the syrup yellow and then caramel, and it can burn in seconds, so the pan must come off the heat at the right moment.

“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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