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Dessert

Caramel for Coloring Soups and Gravies

A caramel sauce used to color soups and gravies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Caramel for Coloring Soups and Gravies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Melt the sugar with the water in a saucepan.

  2. Stir until it turns a dark-brown color.

Dilute and bottle

  1. Add the boiling water and let it simmer for fifteen minutes.

  2. Bottle the caramel for use when cool.

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

Sugar
Caramelizes when heated, giving the caramel its dark color and deep, slightly bitter flavor.

The step that matters

Stir until dark brown. Sugar moves from amber to burnt within a short time. Once it turns bitter and smoky, the caramel cannot be recovered, so watch the color closely and stop at the target shade.

“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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