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Black Jack, or Kitchen Caramel
This indispensable browning is made thus. Put into a little copper saucepan a pound of lump sugar, wet it with two or three spoonfuls of water, and put on a slow fire; skim, and let it cook slowly for several hours until it has become a dark brown colour, or else until the small bubbles begin to change from red to blue; wet it again with a quart of water, let it cook thirty minutes, let it cool, then bottle it. When bottled, cut a small hole in the cork, to allow the liquid to drop from it without uncorking, to prevent too large a quantity falling into the gravy at one time.
Black jack is caramel taken past sweetness to bitterness, then let down with water: a colouring for gravies, soups and sauces rather than a flavouring. The method is sound, but the timing in this entry reflects a coal range that could be kept barely warm all afternoon.
- The hinge: adding the waterMolten caramel is around 350F and will spit violently when liquid hits it. Take the pan off the heat, stand back, and add the water hot and in stages, with a long-handled spoon and a lid to hand. This is the step that burns people, not the boiling.
- "Several hours" is a range, not a ruleOn a modern burner a pound of sugar caramelises to a very dark, almost black brown in fifteen to twenty-five minutes. Cook it low and watch it; the original timing assumes the coolest corner of a range.
- The bubble-colour cue"Small bubbles changing from red to blue" is a hard cue to read and not one to rely on. Judge by colour and smell instead: mahogany going to near-black, with a sharp, burnt, no-longer-sweet aroma. A sugar thermometer reading around 350-360F is the practical marker.
- Lump sugarSimply granulated white sugar. Victorian loaf or lump sugar was broken from a cone with nippers; there is no difference in behaviour here.
- The copper saucepanUnlined copper was standard for sugar work because it conducts evenly, and plain boiling sugar will not attack it. Any heavy-based stainless pan does the job. Do not leave the finished syrup standing in copper -- decant it.
- QuantitiesA pound of sugar plus a quart of water gives roughly a quart of thin, very dark syrup, which is a lifetime's supply for one household. A quarter batch is more sensible.
- Storage and the pierced corkThe sugar content and the boiling make it effectively self-preserving; it keeps for months at room temperature in a clean bottle. The hole in the cork is a Victorian dropper -- a small squeeze bottle or a bottle with a dasher top does the same and is easier to control.
- How it tastesCorrectly made black jack is bitter, not sweet. Add it a few drops at a time to gravy at the end of cooking; too much turns a sauce muddy and faintly acrid rather than merely dark.
Caramel colouring was a workhorse of the professional Victorian kitchen, where a pale gravy or a wan consomme was taken as a sign of carelessness. "Black jack" is the old trade name for burnt sugar used as a colourant, made in quantity and kept by the stove alongside the stock pot. The same substance, in commercial form, coloured beer, vinegar, gravy brownings and spirits; the caramel class of food colours in use today is generally traced back to it.