The recipe that we propose today is that of water caramela very simple preparation suitable for beginners: by combining sugar with water, in fact, the latter will slowly evaporate, leaving only that brown compound, sweet with a slightly smoky aftertaste, loved by everyone, ideal for decorating cakes, biscuits and desserts, but also for crowning ice cream and savory preparations. Caramel is the result of cooking sugar, or the fusion of sucrose and dehydration of glucose. When the water evaporates, caramelization begins. Even if the preparation is not absolutely difficult, you must pay close attention to the cooking times and the color of the caramel, to avoid you burn and become bitter.

Preparation

1

Pour the water into a saucepan. It is important that it has a thick bottom and not excessively tight, to ensure proper crystallization of the sugar without risking burning it. Add the sugar and mix.

2

Turn the heat on to medium heat and wait for the water to come to a boil.

3

Stir continuously with the steel whisk to dissolve the sugar, checking the mixture which must become a nice golden color.

4

Keep stirring: the sugar will start to caramelize as the water evaporates.

5

When the caramel is amber tending to brown, remove the pot from the heat.

Accessories

• A thick-bottomed saucepan
• Steel whisk
• Kitchen thermometer (optional)

Tips and hints

If you have and want to use a cooking thermometer, know that you have reached the temperature between 156 ° and 165 ° you will get a more amber caramelwhile between 166 ° and 175 ° the caramel will be brown and stronger in flavor.

In addition to granulated sugar, you can choose also brown sugar: the result will be a darker and more fragrant caramel. Alternatively, you can use mascobado sugar, a type of sugar more similar to molasses, which will give you a very sweet and flavored caramel.

To prevent your pot from getting damaged, we advise you to use a spatula to immediately remove the splashes of the mixture from the sides of the pot during cooking.

If you need to use caramel for decorations, prepare it on the spot, when the rest of the preparation is ready to be decorated.

To remove any traces of caramel left in the potadd water, a teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon of vinegar and bring to the boil again: the caramel will melt and you will be able to have your pot clean again.

History

Caramel is a centuries-old preparation, one of the first sweet compounds in circulation, precisely because of its simplicity and few ingredients. Already in Eighteenth century the pastry chefs prepared it by cooking water and sugar in copper casseroles and then creating candies and sweets, whose consistency was very hard; after a few decades, the sweet sellers discovered than adding milk to the mixture they could obtain a soft and moldable caramel, what we now call “mou”.

The term caramel is French and derives from “caramel”: however, some sources from the Roman era of late antiquity already speak of “caramellus”, intended as a “sugar stick”: it is therefore very likely that it has much more ancient origins. It is said that Seneca was very greedy!