The Cooking of Sugar

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •1½ to 2 quart (1.5 to 2 litre) narrow, heavy, pale stainless-steel saucepan
• •Clip-on digital sugar thermometer
• •Clean heatproof pastry brush
• •Small bowl for cold-water tests
• •Several clean teaspoons
• •Silicone baking mat and rimmed metal tray for hard-crack sugar or caramel
• •Heatproof gloves

Instructions

1. 1

   Set the station

   Choose the stage you need before beginning. Clip the thermometer inside a clean, narrow saucepan without letting its probe touch the bottom. Set out a small cup of cold water with the pastry brush, a separate bowl of cold water with several clean teaspoons, and a dry heatproof trivet. If making grand cassé or caramel for shards, line a rimmed tray with a silicone mat. Keep children, pets, and bare forearms away from the stove; hot sugar clings to skin and burns far more severely than boiling water.

2. 2

   Dissolve the sugar

   Put the sugar and ⅔ cup (160 ml / 160 g) water in the saucepan. Add the glucose syrup, or the lemon juice in its place, but not both. Stir gently over medium-low heat only until every crystal dissolves and the syrup turns completely clear. Bring it to a boil over medium heat, then stop stirring. If a little foam rises, skim it without disturbing the pan walls; refined sugar rarely produces the scum once found on loaf sugar.

3. 3

   Guard against crystals

   Dip the pastry brush in cold water and wash any crystals from the inside wall of the saucepan, working above the boiling syrup and never touching it. Continue whenever another grain appears. As the free water evaporates, the bubbles become thicker and the syrup moves more stiffly; from this point the temperatures climb quickly. If the syrup clouds and grains spread through the pan, stop. Ça se rattrape: remove it from the heat, let it cool completely, add ¼ cup (60 ml / 60 g) of the reserved water, and dissolve it again over gentle heat before returning to the boil. Never pour water into fiercely hot syrup.

   Do not scrape the saucepan or return a used test spoon to the syrup. Either action can introduce the crystal that starts the whole batch turning.
4. 4

   Read the thread stages

   At 215°F (102°C), the syrup has reached petit filet, the small-thread stage. Place one drop on a cool teaspoon, wait briefly, touch it with a second spoon, and draw the spoons apart; a fine, weak thread should form and break easily. At 222°F (106°C), grand filet, the large-thread stage, produces several stronger threads. Use the thermometer as the decision and the spoon test as confirmation. Keep your fingers out of the saucepan.

5. 5

   Read the ball stages

   For the remaining stages, use cold water. At 236°F (113°C), drop about ¼ teaspoon of syrup into the bowl, wait until it is completely cool, then gather it beneath the water; petit boulé, the small-ball stage, forms a soft ball that flattens readily. At 248°F (120°C), grand boulé, the large-ball stage, forms a firmer ball that holds its shape under gentle pressure. Test with a clean spoon each time and discard every sample.

6. 6

   Read the crack stages

   At 285°F (141°C), a spoonful dropped into cold water becomes a thin, flexible sheet or strand that bends before breaking. This is petit cassé, the small-crack stage. At 315°F (157°C), the cooled syrup becomes rigid and snaps cleanly; this is grand cassé, the large-crack stage. Do not test it against your teeth. If grand cassé is your target, remove the pan from the heat immediately and use the sugar at once, because the retained heat keeps cooking it.

7. 7

   Take it to caramel

   If caramel is the target, continue beyond grand cassé without stirring. At 360°F (182°C), the syrup should be deep amber, glass-clear at its thin edges, and smell bittersweet rather than acrid. Remove the pan immediately and set it on the dry trivet. Pale caramel lacks depth, but blackened sugar tastes burnt and cannot be rescued. Never add liquid unless the receiving recipe specifically calls for it, and then only with the pan off the heat and your hands protected, because caramel rises violently when liquid enters.

8. 8

   Use and cool

   Use filet and boulé syrups immediately in the preparation that requires them. For a grand cassé or caramel sheet, pour the sugar carefully onto the silicone mat without scraping the crystallized residue from the pan walls, then leave it untouched until completely hard. Break or cut it as its final preparation directs. Once the saucepan is cool, fill it with warm water and let the remaining sugar dissolve; force and chipped caramel have no place in the washing-up.

Chef Tips

• •Calibrate the thermometer before trusting it. Boil plain water and note how far its reading sits above or below 212°F (100°C); adjust every sugar target by the same amount. At altitude, this matters more than confidence.
• •Use a pale, heavy saucepan with high sides. Dark nonstick hides caramel's color, while a thin pan scorches the bottom before the upper syrup reaches its proper stage. Copper remains splendid, but stainless steel is the honest home equivalent.
• •Glucose syrup follows the source ratio of one tablespoon per pound of sugar, scaled here for 400 g. It interferes with crystal formation without changing the sequence of stages. The few drops of lemon juice provide the source's alternative, but use one safeguard or the other.
• •Make one batch per destination. Doubling creates a deeper mass that retains more heat and races past the target after the pan leaves the stove; two modest batches are kinder to one cook than one cauldron.
• •Humidity softens grand cassé and caramel. Once fully cool, seal hard sugar airtight at room temperature and keep it away from the refrigerator, where condensation turns a clean surface sticky.

Advance Preparation

• •Measure the sugar, water, and crystallization safeguard up to 8 hours ahead, but keep them separate until cooking begins. Set out every testing and receiving vessel before lighting the stove; cooked sugar will not wait while you search for a tray.
• •Filet and boulé syrups are best transferred directly into the preparation that calls for them. If an unused syrup crystallizes after cooling, add a little water and dissolve it gently again rather than stirring the crystals into submission.
• •Grand cassé and caramel sheets may be cooled, broken, and sealed airtight for up to 3 days in dry weather. If the surface becomes tacky, humidity has reached it; remelting is possible only if the sugar remains clean and has not been mixed with another ingredient.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 410g)