Caramel for Sweetmeats
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
Melt the sugar with water and citric acid in a tinned copper skillet over medium heat.
Once the sugar boils thick, dip a spoon into the sugar, then into a bowl of cold water, pressing the sugar into the water. Repeat until all the sugar is in the water.
Check if a piece snaps when cold; if not, return the sugar to the skillet and boil longer.
Pour and set
When done, pour off the water and run the sugar in a maze pattern onto a well-oiled copper mold.
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
- Double refined sugar
- Forms the caramel base that hardens into a brittle, clear sweet structure as it cooks.
- Citric acid
- Adds a little acidity that helps keep the sugar from crystallising as it boils.
The step that matters
Testing the cold-water snap. Sugar boiled too briefly stays soft and sticky, while boiling too long can scorch it. Checking a piece in cold water shows whether it has reached the hard, brittle stage before it is poured.
“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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