To Clarify Sugar or Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Put the sugar, water, and the white of the egg, which should be well beaten, into a preserving-pan or lined saucepan; do not put it on the fire until the sugar is dissolved.
Then place it on the fire, and when it boils, throw in a teacupful of cold water, and do not stir the sugar after this is added.
Bring it to the boiling point again, and then place the pan by the side of the fire, for the preparation to settle.
Remove all the scum, and the sugar will be ready for use.
The scum should be placed on a sieve, so that what syrup runs from it may be boiled up again; this must also be well skimmed.
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. See the original page.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Sugar (in the method)
- Forms the syrup that the clarified sugar is made from.
- Egg white (in the method)
- Coagulates when heated and collects impurities into scum that can be skimmed off.
The step that matters
Do not stir after adding the cold water. Stirring once the cold water is added would break up the coagulating egg white and carry impurities back into the syrup, so the scum would not separate cleanly.
“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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