Caramel for Coloring
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
In a small thick saucepan, combine sugar and water.
Boil for 10 minutes over high heat.
Watch the mixture until it turns golden, then dark brown.
Thin and bottle
When it resembles thick molasses, add hot water carefully; it will sputter.
Stir until fully dissolved, then boil until it reaches a syrup consistency.
Pour into a bottle and let it cool; it should resemble black molasses.
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 as it heats, giving the syrup its deep golden-brown colour and sweet, toasty flavour.
The step that matters
Adding the hot water. The caramel is extremely hot, so hot water added to it sputters and spatters violently. Adding it slowly and carefully avoids burns, and the water dissolves the hardened caramel into a smooth syrup.
“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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