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Colourings for Gravies

A liquid colouring made from sugar and water, used to darken gravies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Colourings for Gravies

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine 1 pound of coarse sugar with 1 teacup of water in a saucepan.

  2. Heat the mixture until it turns a dark colour.

  3. Add more water and stir well.

  4. Bottle the mixture and store it for future use.

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

Coarse sugar
Caramelises when heated, producing the dark colour that gives the gravy its brown shade.

The step that matters

Heating the sugar until dark. Sugar darkens through caramelisation, and if it is heated too little the colour stays pale, while too far it turns bitter and burnt. Watching the colour closely keeps the flavour pleasant.

“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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