Caramel or Burnt Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
Combine the sugar in a clean saucepan and place it over medium heat.
Stir continuously with a wooden spoon until the sugar melts completely.
Boil slowly for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it turns dark brown.
Gradually add the cold water while stirring.
Boil slowly for another 20 minutes.
Finish and bottle
Let it cool, strain, and pour into a clean, corked bottle.
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
- Loaf sugar
- Melts and caramelises to form the dark colour and sweet flavour of the caramel.
- Cold water
- Added to the hot caramel to dilute it into a pourable liquid.
The step that matters
Adding the cold water. Adding cold water to very hot sugar can cause it to spatter violently and seize into hard lumps. Adding it gradually while stirring lets the caramel loosen evenly.
“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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