Can you Cook Sugar?

Safety first!

Of course you can cook sugar. But it comes in so many variations. It can be for something as simple as creme caramel or for something extravagant like a sugar sculpture. Right up front, I’ll tell you that I am not a sugar sculptor. I am in awe of those folks that do that work. I was lucky to work with some of them. I first worked with Sebastien Cannone back in the 90’s. He was the executive pastry chef at the Ritz-Carlton Chicago. He had a sugar/chocolate room upstairs from the 12th floor pastry kitchen that was humidity and temperature controlled. We didn’t usually get to go up there. But now and then he would need some help. Up there, you would see what he was working on. In addition to sugar work, he did chocolate sculpture. It was for displays that would be presented in the lobby of the hotel. I didn’t understand all of the processes he had to do to make the sculptures work. I was more into the food aspects of cooking sugar.

At the Ritz, I would have to make the caramel bottom to the creme caramel. I would brûlée sugar on to the top of creme brûlée. I also used cook sugar when I made Italian buttercream. You have to cook a sugar syrup to 240°F and steadily pour it over whipped egg whites. Yeah, that one is not for the beginner. It’s totally doable by a home cook but it’s a good idea to have experienced cook to watch in person while you learn to do it. We would make simple syrup by cooking equal parts of sugar and water cooked to 220°F. We used the simple syrup for soaking cakes to improve their moisture quality. What you learn is that when sugar is cooked to different temperatures, it has different properties. Sugar is pretty amazing.

I have a story to tell you about cooking sugar. But first I want to talk about some things you might want to think about if you are cooking sugar yourself. You might want to think about these simple guidelines the next time you find yourself cooking sugar.

Start with a super clean pan. I’m sure you keep your pans clean but this might be a good time to scrub it pretty hard and get a good shine. This assumes you are not using non-stick. Use your best heavy stainless steel or copper pan. Dry it well before beginning.

Use clean utensils. And here I’m talking about using a wooden spoon. It doesn’t conduct heat which is what you want. But use a spoon that you only use for sugar (or at least not very often). Metal spoons conduct heat and can lead to crystallization. We want to avoid crystallization at all costs.

Use clean sugar. If your sugar is kept in a canister near the flour and other kitchen powders, you might want to think about opening a fresh bag of sugar when you cook it. There may be some small containments in the sugar you use every day. Even a small contaminant can really screw up your cooked sugar. Yup, crystallization again.

Use some water to get the sugar started. Sure, you can make caramel with a dry pan and spoon. But again, the chance for crystallization is pretty high. Plus, you can only make caramel with the dry method. If you use water, you’ll slow the process down. (It still goes pretty fast even so) You can cook the sugar to whatever temperature is required for each preparation.

Use a thermometer. Or don’t. If you want to get to a certain temperature, you need to use a thermometer. That being said, I usually only cook sugar to several specific temperatures. I can pretty much tell when it gets near to the temperature I need. For instance if I need softball sugar or 240°F sugar, I watch the bubbles as the sugar cooks. Once they start getting bigger and popping slower, I know I’m getting close. I keep some ice water nearby. I grab a bit of the sugar with my wooden spoon and plunge it into the ice water.

Have a plan to where you are going to put the sugar: If you just start cooking sugar without a plan, you may find once it's done cooking to the desired temperature, you are scrambling to figure out where to put it. If you're making caramel, have a place for the caramel to go. That means getting your creme caramel cups ready before cooking the sugar. If you're making buttercream, have the egg whites whipped and the bowl ready to go before you apply heat to the sugar. It's all about preparation.

So one time at the Ritz, my friend John and I were working in the extra pastry shop. We had two. This was the shop where we would make doughs, creams and generally support the main pastry shop and the rest of the giant kitchen at the Ritz. I think we were working on some pastry cream or something like it. The executive pastry chef, Sebastien Cannone stops by to cook some sugar. He put on a very large pot of sugar with a substantial amount of water. The water will slow down the cooking of the sugar. But eventually, most of the water will evaporate. He was making a new sugar sculpture for the entry way of the restaurant, The Dining Room at the Ritz. He worked in his own world on these sugar sculptures. He didn't share a lot about them. But this time he asked for help. He asked us to watch the sugar while he did something else. He would be back in 20 minutes. Sebastien wanted the sugar cooked to 290°F which is between the soft crack and hard crack stages. He would be using the sugar for pulling. There are several ways sugar can be used in a sculpture. There's pulled, poured, spun, molded and blown. What we did next was not advised.

He told us to watch the sugar and take it off the heat at 280°F. This would allow for some carry over cooking of the sugar. So we decided that it was a good time to go downstairs to the cafeteria for some lunch. We thought since it had to go for 20 minutes anyway, we could sneak out for food. Let me just say right now, this is a bad idea. You should always attend to cooking sugar. Do not walk away from it. But we were young and not that bright, so downstairs we went. We found some friends down there from other departments. We talked for a bit and then headed upstairs within the 20 minute timeframe. We thought we had plenty of time. We did not.

When we returned to the extra pastry kitchen, we found it filled with smoke. The pan with the sugar had a black growth coming out of it. It was like one of those snakes you would light when you were a kid and it would just smoke and grow. (https://youtu.be/TK-PqwxC6lM) It was actually solid black burnt sugar coming out of the pan. It went above the top of the pan! It had evaporated all the moisture. It was shiny and had little holes all throughout it. It was kind of pretty in a weird way.

What is so strange is that no one saw this pan smoking on the stove. The pastry kitchen was on a well traveled hallway. But no one walking by thought to take it off the heat. We were lucky it didn't cause a fire or set off the Ansul fire suppressant system. That would have been especially bad. Like I said, we were very lucky. We thought we had gotten away with it when the chef showed up to retrieve his sugar. He was not happy with us. But he didn't yell. He just asked us what we were thinking. We sheepishly explained what we had done. He told us to clean it up. Then he hesitated. He said, "Wait, I could use some of that black sugar."

So we cut off what we could and gave it to him. Then he told us to make sure the pan we were cooking it in was spotless and shiny. We worked hard to clean up that pan. It did shine when we were done. And we went back to work. We pretty much forgot about that day. We wanted to put it behind us.

But later that week Sebastien unveiled his latest sugar sculpture. It was set inside an aquarium. It was an underwater scene with beautiful angel fish, lot of colorful underwater plants and our contribution: black coral! That's right, he wanted the burnt sugar for his underwater scene. We had helped. The new sugar sculpture was a hit and became a focal point for the dining room at the Ritz-Carlton Chicago. John and I still have a laugh when we think about those days. And yes, you can cook sugar.