How to Boil Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Combine the sugar and water in a pan.
Place the pan on the fire and bring to a boil.
Once boiling, check if the sugar is fully dissolved; crush any lumps against the pan's side with a spatula.
Cover the pan and boil for 10 minutes.
Remove the cover and insert a sugar thermometer into the pan.
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
- Lump sugar
- Dissolves in water to form the syrup that later cooks to a set stage.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can boil evenly and reach temperature without scorching.
The step that matters
Dissolving the sugar before it boils. Undissolved crystals left on the pan side can seed sugar crystallization as the syrup thickens, making it grainy. Making sure all lumps are dissolved first keeps the syrup smooth.
“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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