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Sugars

A process for making barley sugar and caramel from dry and granulated sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sugars

Ingredients

Directions

Make barley sugar and caramel

  1. In a porcelain evaporating dish, heat 1 teaspoon of dry sugar slowly, stirring constantly. Hold a piece of glass above to collect moisture.

  2. Continue heating until it turns pale yellow (this is barley sugar).

  3. When it turns red-brown and begins to smoke, remove from heat and slowly pour in an equal amount of boiling water.

  4. Return to heat and bring to a boil, then remove, let cool, and taste (this is caramel).

Test granulated sugar

  1. In a test tube, dissolve 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar in 2 tablespoons of hot water.

  2. Divide into two portions; test one with Fehling’s solution to check for precipitate. To the second portion, add 1/4 teaspoon of lemon juice.

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

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

The step that matters

Removing the dry sugar at the right colour. Sugar passes from pale yellow to red-brown and then to smoke within moments. Heating slowly and stirring constantly prevents scorching in one spot, and removing it from heat at red-brown avoids burnt, bitter flavour.

“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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