• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Devour.Asia

Devour.Asia

Connie Veneracion explores Asian food, history and culture

  • Tea
  • Kitchen Tales
    • Pantry Staples
    • Kitchen Tools
    • Cooking Techniques
    • Food Trivia
  • Food Tales
  • Travel Tales
  • Search
  • All Recipes
    • Chinese
    • Japanese
    • Korean
    • Taiwanese
    • Thai
    • Vietnamese
    • Asian Fusion
    • Instant Noodles (Ramen)
  • Tea
  • Kitchen Tales
    • Pantry Staples
    • Kitchen Tools
    • Cooking Techniques
    • Food Trivia
  • Food Tales
  • Travel Tales
  • Pop Tales
  • About
  • Privacy
  • All Recipes
  • Chinese
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Taiwanese
  • Thai
  • Vietnamese
  • Fusion
You are here: Home / Kitchen Tales / Cooking Techniques / How to Caramelize Sugar

How to Caramelize Sugar

I baked a custard cake earlier today and the number of photos overwhelmed me. So, I decided to create a separate “how to” entry for caramelizing sugar. After all, I will most likely refer to this process occasionally in the future as my repertoire of baking projects multiply. A how to caramelize sugar article will save me the trouble of having to photograph the caramelizing stage every time a baking project requires it.

Why do we caramelize sugar? For many reasons. Pasty chefs use hardened caramel to create pretty things for decorating. The hot caramel is shaped and swirled before it hardens and the result often goes on top of cakes and desserts. Caramelized sugar is also the traditional glazing for leche flan (although I have tried using molasses and it works too).

There are only two things you need for caramelizing sugar — water and sugar. The ratio between water and sugar depends on how thin or how thick you want the resulting caramel to be. I know some cooks who simply melt sugar without any water but sugar burns too fast that way.

For purposes of this entry, the caramel we are creating is of the consistency we need for glazing leche flan.

Heating sugar and water

First, place the sugar and water in a thick bottomed pan. For about half a cup of caramel, use 1 cup of white sugar and 1/4 cup of water. Just place them in the pan — don’t stir.

Boiling sugar and water

Turn the heat to high and bring the water and sugar to the boil without stirring. Then, lower the heat to medium-high and continue boiling.

Sugar starting to brown in the heat

After about 8 minutes, the mixture will start to brown. If the mixture along the edges of the pan brown much faster, swirl the pan to even out the coloring.

Boiling sugar until amber-colored

Continue boiling until the liquid is the color of amber.

Caramelized sugar of pouring consistency

The caramelized sugar is of perfect pouring consistency at this stage. Use it at once.

If you’re glazing leche flan with it, pour it into the mold immediately. Caramelized sugar hardens fast — within a minute, you will no longer be able to pour it.

You can’t keep it on the stove either, even over very low heat, because if you continue to subject it to heat, it will go on cooking and turn dark. And a few seconds after that? That’s called burnt sugar already.

The caramelized sugar became the base for a custard cake.

Inside my Asian kitchen

Broccoli Stems are Edible and Nutritious

Cooking lechon kawali at home

Deep-fried Crispy Pork Belly (Lechon Kawali)

Rice

How To Cook Rice: Stovetop, Rice Cooker, Microwave

Asian food tales

Chukadon

Donburi: Japanese Rice Bowl Dishes

How the British Addiction to Tea Shaped Hong Kong

How the British Addiction to Tea Shaped Hong Kong

Mantao with Taiwanese sausage and Taiwan Beer

Where We Stayed in Taipei and Spent Evenings With Taiwan Beer

Explore Asia

Metropolitan Manila Theater (MET)

Moon Over the MET and the Ghosts We Didn’t See

The promenade around Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi

That Day We Got Lost and Found Ourselves on the Promenade of Hoan Kiem Lake

Alex Veneracion at Wak Lok Moli in Chiang Mai

What We Discovered on the Flight to Chiang Mai and During our First Few Hours in the City

March 7, 2009 : Cooking Techniques, Seasonings & Condiments
Previous Post: « Cutting corn off the cob How to Cut Fresh Corn Off the Cob
Next Post: How to Make Fish Broth Boiling fish head and bones to make broth »

Sidebar

Asian Pop Tales

Scene from "Vagabond" | Image credit: Netflix

“Vagabond” is not a Heavyweight Spy Story But It Pushes All the Right Buttons

Scene from Samurai Gourmet | Image credit: Netflix

“Samurai Gourmet”

Scene from “3 Idiots” | Image credit: Reliance BIG Pictures

Must See: “3 Idiots”

  • About
  • Privacy & Usage
  • Full Archive

Everything © Connie Veneracion. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.