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Caramel, or Burned Sugar
Put two ounces of brown or white sugar in an old tin cup over a brisk fire, stir this until it is quite dark and gives forth a burned smell, then add half a cup of cold water; let it boil gently a few minutes, stirring well and all the while. Take off, and when cold bottle for use. This keeps well, and may be used for flavoring gravies and soups.
A jar of burnt sugar syrup for colouring gravies and soups, made by taking sugar past caramel to the point where it is more bitter than sweet. The technique is unchanged; only the vessel and the caution about splatter need updating.
- The hinge: take it darker than looks sensibleThe point of caramel colouring is bitterness and depth, not sweetness, so the sugar must go well past amber to a deep mahogany that smokes faintly and smells scorched. Pull it too early and you get sugar syrup that sweetens the gravy instead of colouring it.
- Don't use an old tin cupUse a small heavy stainless or enamelled saucepan instead: sugar at this stage is around 350F or hotter, and thin metal scorches it unevenly.
- QuantitiesTwo ounces of sugar is about a quarter cup; half a cup of water is 4 fl oz. The yield is a small bottle of dark syrup, which will colour a great many gravies.
- Adding the waterCold water hitting molten sugar erupts violently in steam. Take the pan off the heat, stand back, add the water in a slow stream, and expect it to seize into a hard lump before it dissolves again over gentle heat.
- Brown or white sugarWhite sugar gives a cleaner, purely bitter result. Brown sugar contains molasses that begins to burn sooner, so it darkens faster and less predictably, and carries its own flavour into the bottle.
- StirringThe original says to stir throughout. Modern practice is to swirl the pan rather than stir while the dry sugar melts, to avoid crystals climbing the sides, then stir freely once the water is in.
- KeepingThe original says it keeps well; stoppered in a bottle it will last a good while. If it thickens or crystallises, warm it gently with a spoonful of water.
- Using itAdd a few drops at a time to soup or gravy and taste as you go. It does much the same job as bottled gravy browning or commercial caramel colour, and it is easy to tip a dish into bitterness.
Burnt sugar was a standard kitchen colouring agent, and one many household cooks would have kept ready to hand. Pale gravy was considered a fault, and a brown sauce was expected to look brown whether or not the meat had given up enough fond to make it so; caramel supplied the colour and a trace of bitterness that stood in for long roasting. The same substance, made on an industrial scale, still colours commercial gravy browning, dark beers, colas and soy sauces, where it appears on labels as caramel colour. The Home Cook Book was a Toronto compilation of the later 1870s, adapted from an earlier Chicago book, and this entry is a good example of what such books did best: recording the small stock preparations a kitchen ran on, which no one thought worth writing down until someone did.