Caramelization

Caramelization is what happens when sugar is heated until it breaks down and browns. The sugar melts, turns golden, then amber, then dark brown, and its flavor changes from plain sweet to buttery, nutty and slightly bitter. It is how you make caramel sauce, the top of a crème brûlée and the dark edges on roasted fruit.

How to do it

For a dry caramel:

1. Spread 200 g (1 cup) of white sugar in a heavy, light-colored pan.
2. Heat over medium heat without stirring. When the edges melt, gently swirl the pan.
3. Cook until it is the color of a copper coin, around 170 to 180°C (340 to 355°F).
4. Take it off the heat at once and use it, or add cream or butter to stop it.

For a wet caramel, add 60 ml (1/4 cup) of water to the sugar first. It is slower but easier to control.

How to tell it is done

Light caramel is pale gold and mild. Medium amber is the usual target for sauces. Dark mahogany caramel tastes bitter and smoky. If it smokes heavily and smells acrid, it is burnt.

Why it works

Heat breaks sucrose into smaller sugars, which react with each other and form hundreds of new compounds that add color and flavor. Table sugar starts to caramelize around 160°C (320°F). Fructose, in honey and fruit, browns at lower temperatures.

Caramelization involves only sugar. The Maillard reaction needs sugar and protein together and is behind the browning of meat, bread and coffee. "Caramelized onions" brown mostly through the Maillard reaction, since onions contain both.

Common mistakes

• Stirring a wet caramel early, which can make it crystallize into gritty lumps. Swirl the pan instead.
• Walking away. Caramel goes from amber to burnt in seconds.
• Touching it. Molten sugar sticks to skin and causes serious burns.
• Adding cold cream all at once, which makes it spit and seize. Warm the cream and add it slowly, standing back.

In recipes

"Cook to a deep amber" means caramelize. Sugar stages such as the soft-ball stage come before caramel, at lower temperatures, when sugar is still clear. The hard-crack stage is the last stage before it starts to color.