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Sugar Browning, for Colouring Soups, Sauces, and Made Dishes
When sauces and made dishes need to be thickened as well as browned, roux or brown thickening should be used. When the colour only is required, it may often be sufficiently imparted by means of a little claret or mushroom ketchup, or by frying the meat and onions used till they are a light-brown colour, or by stewing onion-skins or burnt onions in the sauce. Some cooks adopt the slovenly and dangerous practice of melting a knob of sugar in an iron spoon and adding this to the preparation; but this plan is almost certain to give to the sauce a bitter, burnt taste. Sugar browning is a convenient preparation, which will give to the sauce the requisite brown colour, and if it be carefully made there will be no fear that it will impart an unpleasant taste. To make it, proceed as follows. Take a quarter of a pound of good brown sugar; put it into a delicately-clean saucepan, and stir it without ceasing over a gentle fire till it melts and begins to acquire a little colour. Draw it back, and let it bake slowly, still stirring, until it is almost black without being at all burnt. Pour a quart of water upon it, let it boil gently until dissolved, skim it, strain through muslin, put the preparation when cold into small bottles, stopper closely, and it will be fit for use. If liked, this browning may be slightly flavoured by the addition of ketchup, cloves, onions, pepper, and salt; but it is more likely to be generally useful if it is quite plain. Time to prepare, about an hour. Sufficient, a few drops will colour a pint of gravy.
This is caramel colouring — what confectioners call blackjack — cooked far past the toffee stage until the sugar has lost nearly all its sweetness and kept only its colour. It is straightforward, but the sugar reaches temperatures well above boiling water and the moment it is diluted is the one to respect.
- The hinge: black, not burntThe sugar must go past amber, past mahogany, to a very dark brown that reads almost black in the pan — roughly 190-200C/375-390F, though the book gives no temperature and colour is the only guide it offers — and then stop. Bitterness arrives within seconds of that point, so pull the pan off the heat while the colour is still moving and let residual heat finish it.
- Adding the waterA quart of cold liquid onto sugar at that temperature will erupt violently. Use hot water, add it a little at a time with the pan off the heat and your hand and arm well clear, and expect the caramel to seize into a lump before it redissolves over gentle heat.
- QuantitiesA quarter of a pound is 115g of sugar. The quart is an imperial one, 40 fl oz or about 1.1 litres; a US quart of 32 fl oz gives a slightly stronger browning, which is no bad thing.
- The panUse a heavy stainless or lined pan, not aluminium — a pale interior is the only way to judge the colour of dark caramel. Fill it no more than a third full to allow for the foam when the water goes in.
- "Brown sugar"Victorian brown sugar was less refined and more variable than today's. Any soft light or dark brown sugar works; the molasses adds a little flavour, so plain granulated white gives the most neutral result — though the recipe itself calls for good brown sugar, and its advice to keep the browning 'quite plain' refers to leaving out the optional flavourings.
- Mushroom ketchup and the alternativesThe mushroom ketchup mentioned in the opening is a thin, salty, spiced mushroom liquor, not the tomato sauce; it is now a specialist item, and a dash of Worcestershire, soy or a dark stock reduction does the same job. Onion skins simmered in a sauce genuinely do tint it, and are worth remembering.
- StorageAt a quarter-pound of sugar to a quart of water this is a dilute syrup, not a preserving one, so do not count on it keeping indefinitely; a clean stoppered bottle in a cool place should hold plain browning for some weeks. The optional version flavoured with onion, cloves and ketchup is no longer just sugar and water — keep that one refrigerated and use it quickly.
- Yield and useAbout a litre of concentrate from an hour's work, which is a lifetime's supply for a domestic cook; a quarter batch is more sensible. A few drops colour a pint of gravy, so add it from a dropper and judge by eye.
Sugar browning is the domestic ancestor of caramel colouring, the substance now listed as E150a and often said to be the most widely used food colour in the world, from gravy brownings to cola to dark ales and blended whisky. Cooking sugar past the point of sweetness into what confectioners called blackjack gave Victorian kitchens a reliable, tasteless tint at a time when a pale sauce was read as a sign of a careless cook — the deep brown of a proper espagnole or a rich gravy was the standard, and not every stock or roux got there on its own. It is a preparation to keep bottled on the shelf, alongside glaze and browned flour. Its dismissal of the knob of sugar melted in an iron spoon is a small piece of kitchen politics: the book allows only that some cooks adopt the shortcut, which was quick and produced exactly the acrid taste it is trying to train out of its readers.