How to make caramel

As the sugar heats, the molecules break down and re-form into compounds with a characteristic colour and flavour. Most likely how to make caramel comes from Late Latin calamellus ‘sugar cane’, a diminutive of calamus ‘reed, cane’, itself from Greek κάλαμος.

Caramel sauce is made by mixing caramelized sugar with cream. Depending on the intended application, additional ingredients such as butter, fruit purees, liquors, or vanilla can be used. Caramel sauce is used in a range of desserts, especially as a topping for ice cream. Milk caramel manufactured as square candies, either for eating or for melting down. Alternatively, all ingredients may be cooked together.

This temperature is not high enough to caramelize sugar and this type of candy is often called milk caramel or cream caramel. In the late 1990s, the Parisian pastry chef Pierre Hermé introduced his salted butter and caramel macaroons and, by 2000, high-end chefs started adding a bit of salt to caramel and chocolate dishes. In 2008 it entered the mass market, when Häagen-Dazs and Starbucks started selling it. Originally used in desserts, the confection has seen wide use elsewhere, including in hot chocolate and spirits such as vodka. Its popularity may come from its effects on the reward systems of the human brain, resulting in “hedonic escalation”. Caramel colouring, a dark, bitter liquid, is the highly concentrated product of near total caramelization, used commercially as food and beverage colouring, e.

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