Caramel control
Consistent caramel success eludes a lot of bakers
so here is everything I do, EVERY time I make
a wet caramel for honeycomb or toffee or a
butterscotch sauce. No more crystallised/burnt
(you or the sugar) messes. Forget the fear and
bathe in rivers of complex amber bittersweet
deliciousness every bake of your life!
Pot luck
Choose a light-coloured pot to cook caramel in.

Dark-coloured pots will obscure the colour of the
caramel, making it easy to miss the cues in the
hues as it cooks. Choose a roomy pot too, to allow
for the bubbling to come later.

Re-finest
Use refined white caster (superfine) or granulated
white sugar. It has fewer residual impurities than
brown sugars, which can cause crystallisation …
Crystallisation and how to
overcome it
Crystallisation occurs when caramelisation is
disrupted. The syrup will get cloudy, and visible
flakes of sugar (like ice sheets) will form at the sides.

An easy fix is to add the juice of half a lemon and
turn the heat up to a hard boil. Turn the heat back
down when the sugar flakes have melted.
Short stir
Utensils cause crystallisation. Stir with a metal
spoon or whisk ONLY until the sugar grains
dissolve so any clumps of dry sugar on the base
won’t scorch before the syrup forms. Get the
utensil out as soon as the mix starts bubbling,
and don’t put it back in until you are adding
ingredients like cream and butter ingredients
once  it’s deeply coloured.

Brush be-gone
Lots of recipes recommend keeping a brush in
water and swiping the side of the pot to fight
a war against crystallisation. Put down your
weapons. It’s not necessary, and it won’t bring
caramel glory – just frizzled brush hairs. Read
the next step.

Good as gold
My golden (caramel) rule: boil it good and hard
until it turns golden. This initial e ffervescent
boil forces sugar (sucrose) to quickly evolve into
the two building blocks of caramel. This is your
100  per cent guarantee against crystallising. I’ve
never been let down by this method. Also, as the
initial syrup bubbles excitedly, it does the job of
the brush and water, pulling down any stray sugar
from the sides. When you see a little golden  colour
at the edges, it’s good as gold and then y ou …
Hit the (temperature) brakes!
You can’t just turn the heat off a caramel and
expect it to stop cooking. Like a runaway speeding
bus, it will keep going until it careens off an
unfinished bridge. So here’s where we tap the
brakes: as soon as the caramel reaches a pale
golden colour, lower the heat and keep cooking
it until it reaches the target temperature. After
caramel gets to 160°C (320°F) (the official
starting temperature of caramel) it heats
exponentially fast, so stay with your caramel now,
studying the bubbles as they change in size from
small plasticky balls to superfine beading. Swirl
the pot from time to time to settle the bubbles so
you can better see the clear caramel underneath.

Gently rock the pot backwards and forwards to
regulate the colour (in doing this, you will see the
true caramel colour, because deep amounts of
caramel will look darker than they are).