Stages of sugar when Boiled.

When you work with some recipes you might notice that they sometimes tell you to bring your sugar to a soft ball stage for an Italian Meringue, or a Hard Crack stage for dipping fruit in to give it a glistening coat of sugar. Yet sometimes they don't include the temperatures to which you need to boil the sugar to in order to getit to that stage. Well now all you need to do is refer back to my website. This information will be available under Culinary Glossary & Ingredients and then Sugar. This will also give you a few uses for some of the different stages of boiling, so if you would like to play around making sugar Angel Hair, now you know to which temperature you need to take your sugar. Also just remember when you work with sugar it retains heat very well and will continue to cook even once its been removed from the heat, so you have to anticipate a minute ahead of time, or place it on a cold surface straight away other wise it will over cook. 
Please be very careful when working with sugar, its not nice having a lump of blistering hot sugar fall on you! 

Boiling Stages

1. Strong Thread: 104°C - Glaze for sugared fruits.
   
2. Blow: 110°C (‘Physical test’ - Twist wire into a loop shape, dip into solution, blow, long bubble will appear)
3. Soft Ball: 116°C (‘Physical test’ – Dip teaspoon into cold water, then into boiling syrup, remove a little bit of sugar syrup, return to cold water, form a softball.)
4. Hard Ball: 128°C (‘Physical test’ - Same as soft ball however sugar will form a hard ball)
5. Soft Crack: 138°C (‘Physical test’ – Sugar will slightly crack once cooled)
6. Crack: 145°C (‘Physical test’ – Sugar will break cleanly once cooled) Uses: Sugar Ribbons, Blowing Sugar, Spun Sugar.
7. Hard Crack:  149°C (‘Physical test' – Sugar will break cleanly if bitten between teeth and should not adhere to them if correctly cooked) Uses: Pulled Sugar, Rock Sugar, Straw Sugar and Fruit Glaze.
8. Caramel:  175°C - Changes colour to caramel.
9. Black Jack: 179° C - Sugar is burnt

Edited by: Monique Boaventura

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