[Sca-cooks] Two candy questions.....

[Johnna Holloway]

Caramel?

I am tempted to say what do you exactly mean by caramel?

The sugar stage? The candy?

OED says: Etymology:  < French caramel, < Spanish caramelo (Italian  
caramello, Portuguese caramelo) , of uncertain origin.
Scheler suggests that the Spanish represents Latin calamellus little  
tube, in reference to its tubular form; Mahn thinks it from medieval  
Latin cannamella sugar-cane: an Arabic source is conjectured by Littré.

  a. A black or brown porous substance obtained by heating sugar to  
about 210° C., by which it loses two equivalents of water; burnt  
sugar. It is used for colouring spirits, etc.
   b. A kind of ‘candy’ or sweet.

Seems to be 18th century.
1725    R. Bradley Chomel's Dict. Œcon. (at cited word),   Sugar, When  
it is boiled to Caramel, it breaks and cracks.

caramelised, 18– caramelized. meaning
            That has been turned into caramel; covered or glazed with  
caramel; heated or cooked until brown in colour and sweet in taste.

19th century.
1846    Debow's Rev. Nov. 343   The syrup is becoming more and more  
heated, that which is on the edges of the surface next to the metal  
becomes burnt or caramelized.
---
Here's another:

"caramel   Caramel is sugar which has been cooked until it turns  
brown. The word caramel is a comparatively late introduction into  
English: it is first recorded in 1725. It came via French from Spanish  
caramelo, but its previous history is speculative; its most likely  
source is perhaps late Latin calamellus, a diminutive form of Latin  
calamus, ‘reed, cane’ (the implied reference being to  
‘sugarcane’). The sweets caramels, a soft form of toffee, are made  
with sugar and milk, butter, or cream."


How to cite this entry:
"caramel"  An A-Z of Food and Drink. Ed. John Ayto. Oxford university  
Press, 2002. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.

---
Countess Alys has done an article on sugar temperatures which was  
published in TI.
You might like that.

Boiled candy- we've discussed this before. See the Pulled Sugar file  
in the Florilegium
Back in 2005 I wrote:
I had an injection in my knee today so I can't really sit and tidy  
this all up.

(And as luck would have it--- I just had my end of year injection  
today!)

  I am pulling this from my sugarworks file from earlier postings that  
I have made on this topic... If you check Sugar-Plums and Sherbet by  
Laura Mason. Also see her PPC 69 article which has the early English  
mss. candy recipes in it. Early sugar work dates from the 15th century.

In Sugar-Plums and Sherbet she dates pulled sugar to the year 1500  
where in the York manuscript there is a recipe "To make Penydes" where  
hot sugar syrup is worked with the hands. See page 84.

The manuscript "Goud Kokery" which is section V in Curye on Inglysch  
has the following: 13. To make suger plate; 14. To mak penydes; 15. To  
make ymages in suger. This mss. is dated late 1300's. The penydes  
recipe is interesting because penydes is actually pulled and drawn out  
with the hands over a hook. It was then cut with shears. See Laura  
Mason for description.

---

Brighid ni Chiarain reminded us later that there were these earlier  
recipes: Johnnae, you probably know about this already -- there are  
pulled sugar recipes in the 13th c. Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook.

Then later we came across "sukkar Sulaymani" which is described as  
"hard sugar candy made from white cane sugar. Sulaymani and tabarzad  
are sometimes referred to as al-sukkaran 'the two sugars' as in the  
Istanbul MS (fol. 22v)." Nasrallah goes on to say that it was made  
from white sugar boiled into a thick syrup, then beaten until it  
clouded and crystallized. This would have aerated it. While still hot  
(or warm) and malleable, it was formed into discs, rings, fingers, and  
otherwise shaped. page 601 This was eaten as candy or was crushed and  
used as a garnish or crushed for use in recipes. page 602

This is from Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens.Ibn Sayya-r al-Warra-q's  
Tenth-Century Baghdadi Cookbook. English Translation with Introduction  
and Glossary by Nawal Nasrallah Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007 xii,  
876 pp., 32 pp of color plates.

Hope this helps Johnnae




On Dec 3, 2010, at 9:45 AM, rattkitten at bellsouth.net wrote:

> Ok I think the answer is yes but I can't remember..... is caramel  
> period? And is hard candy ie boiled sugar to hard crack stage  
> period?  Thanks folks I am sitting in a tire place getting brakes  
> fixed so can't look it up very well
> Nichola
>
>