Techniques › Baking and pastry
Making caramel
Advanced Baking and pastry
Making caramel is cooking sugar until it melts and browns into a rich, nutty, golden-to-amber syrup.
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How do you do it?
- Use a heavy, light-colored pan so you can see the color.
- Stir sugar with a little water over medium heat until dissolved, then stop stirring and just swirl the pan.
- Cook until it turns amber and smells toasty, roughly 340-350°F.
- Take it off the heat and add cream or butter slowly; it will bubble up hard.
Why does it work?
Above about 320°F sugar breaks down into hundreds of new compounds that give caramel its color and flavor. Stirring a syrup can knock in crystals that make the whole pot turn grainy.
What are the common mistakes?
- Walking away — it goes from amber to burnt and bitter in seconds.
- Touching or tasting it — molten sugar causes severe burns.
Still stuck? Watch someone do it on YouTube.
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