Caramel, or Burned Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
Put the sugar in an old tin cup over a brisk fire.
Stir until it is dark and smells burned.
Add the cold water and let it boil gently for a few minutes, stirring well.
Cool and bottle
Remove from heat and let it cool before bottling for use.
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
- Heating browns the sugar, creating the dark colour and deep, bitter-sweet caramel flavour.
The step that matters
Stir until dark, then stop. Sugar moves quickly from amber to dark and bitter once it begins to burn. Stirring keeps heat even, so the sugar browns evenly instead of scorching in spots.
“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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