Burned Sugar or Caramel
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
Place the sugar in an old tin cup or ladle over a sharp fire.
Stir with a stick until the sugar turns black and emits a burning smell.
Add ½ cup of cold water and stir.
Boil gently for 4 to 5 minutes.
Cool and store
Remove from heat, cool, and bottle 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
- White sugar
- Caramelises under heat to build the dark colour and bittersweet flavour of the caramel.
- Cold water
- Dissolves the hardened sugar when added, loosening it into a pourable liquid.
The step that matters
Stirring the sugar as it darkens. Sugar can go from amber to burnt very quickly over a sharp fire. Once it smells strongly burnt and turns black, the bitterness dominates, so it needs close attention and removal from heat at the right colour.
“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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