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Syrup for Cream Ices
Ingredients.
Half a pound of Sugar.
Half a pint of Water.
Put the sugar into a small copper sugar boiler with the cold water; when it is dissolved, boil it up, remove the scum, and reduce it to a thick syrup. When the saccharometer registers 220° Fahr. the syrup is finished; let it cool before using.
This is a base syrup, not a finished sweet: it is the sugar component stirred into fruit purées and custards for ices and sorbets. Everything depends on hitting the density, so the thermometer is the whole recipe.
- The measurementsHalf a pound of sugar is 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated (225 g). Half an imperial pint of water is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ US cups. Expect roughly 1 cup of finished syrup after reduction.
- The hinge: 220°FTake the syrup off the heat when it reads 220°F (104°C) on a candy or instant-read thermometer. Carry it further and you pass into the thread stage and beyond, and the syrup will no longer be at the density the recipe is aiming for.
- Saccharometer vs. thermometerA saccharometer measures density, not heat, so the original conflates two instruments: the figure it quotes, 220° Fahr., is a temperature rather than a density reading.
- The copper sugar boilerAny small heavy saucepan works; unlined copper was prized only for even heat and for not staining. Avoid a thin pan, where the syrup scorches at the edges before the centre reaches temperature.
- Skimming and crystalsSkim once as it comes to the boil, then leave it alone. Do not stir after boiling begins, and brush any sugar clinging to the sides down with a wet pastry brush, or a single crystal will seed the lot.
- AltitudeSugar stages are tied to the boiling point of water, so at elevation subtract roughly 1°F from 220 for every 500 feet above sea level.
- Cooling and keepingCool completely before adding it to fruit or custard, as the original says; warm syrup will thin a purée and slacken a custard. Bottled and refrigerated it keeps for several weeks.
Before dial thermometers were common, confectioners judged sugar by a ladder of named degrees — thread, pearl, blow, feather, crack, caramel — tested by finger, water or the breath through a skimmer, and a saccharometer or Baumé hydrometer floated in the cooled syrup gave a numerical reading of density. Recipes of this stamp sit at the point where the two systems overlap: the instruction still assumes a copper sugar boiler and a skimmed syrup, but the finishing point is quoted as a number. Sugar concentration governs how hard the mixture sets.