Hi all. Just made my first ever brittle and it came out quite nice.
Basic recipe.

Why is it that most recipes call for lite corn syrup? Why not just
cook the sugar and water and get caramel and go from there?

Thx

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003, shipwreck wrote:

> Hi all. Just made my first ever brittle and it came out quite nice.
> Basic recipe.
>
> Why is it that most recipes call for lite corn syrup? Why not just
> cook the sugar and water and get caramel and go from there?

I have been told that light corn syrup is good for delaying the
crystallization of sugar.

Additionally, it has been clarified to be perfectly clear and is often
favoured with vanilla. This means using light corn syrup will taste a
little different and will make your brittle clearer.

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Corn syrup or glucose are added to recipes to stop the
re-crystalization of the sugar in the finished product. Butter Tarts
being an example.
john

another reason is that corn syrup is a liquid sweetner consisting of water, a
vegetable gum called dextrin, and various sugars primarly dextrose(glucose) the
vegtable gum helps it keep its good strong shape and give you a crisp crack.
and also it it aids in retaining moisture.

OK, but what about caramel. What happens there? No syrup in that.
Does it remain soft or will it also harden at 300F?

Just trying to understand.


On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 22:20:38 -0500, jlh >
wrote:

>Corn syrup or glucose are added to recipes to stop the
>re-crystalization of the sugar in the finished product. Butter Tarts
>being an example.
>john

"shipwreck" > wrote in message
...
> OK, but what about caramel. What happens there? No syrup in that.
> Does it remain soft or will it also harden at 300F?
>
> Just trying to understand.

The longer you cook sugar solutions, more water is evaporated. If you want
a soft caramel, you stop the cooking at a lower temperature. As others have
stated, the corn syrup is added to sugar solutions to inhibit
crystallization. You are starting with a saturated solution of rather pure
sucrose in water and are further concentrating it by boiling off the water.
Eventually the sugar molecules will want to form very large crystals and
result in an undesirable texture. Glucose has a different crystal shape
than sucrose. Putting some glucose (or other sugar) in with the sucrose
helps prevent the crystals from forming. If you had a big bag of wooden
block that you continually drew closed with a draw string, eventually a lot
of the blocks would touch and form large cubes (crystals) made of many
smaller blocks. If you started with blocks and added a bunch of tennis
balls, when the bag constricted, the blocks wouldn't be able to join into
large units (crystals) because the tennis balls would be randomly
interspersed.

Another approach to the problem of crystallization is to add some acid to
the pot. When sucrose is heated with acid, some of it turn into fructose.
You might take a look at "Cookwise" by Shirley O. Corriher. She does a good
job of explaining these things.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...85718?v=glance

....when you add an acid to a sucrose(sugar) solution that is being heated you
dont get fructose. what happens is some of the sucrose breaks down into equal
parts dextrose and levulose which in baking is called invert sugar. this sugar
mixture now resists crystalization and provides you with a smoother less grainy
candy. this is why an acid like cream of tater is added to sugar syrups...

"Mk3217" > wrote in message
...
> ...when you add an acid to a sucrose(sugar) solution that is being heated
you
> dont get fructose. what happens is some of the sucrose breaks down into
equal
> parts dextrose and levulose which in baking is called invert sugar. this
sugar
> mixture now resists crystalization and provides you with a smoother less
grainy
> candy. this is why an acid like cream of tater is added to sugar syrups...

Sorry. You are right about that.

no problem,