[2343—VEGETABLE COLOURING MATTERS]
Every pastry-cook’s stock should include a series of vegetable colouring matters, comprising carmine, liquid spinach green, yellow, &c.
When required, the blending of these colours yields the intermediate tones. The colours may be bought.
[690]
][2344—THE COOKING OF SUGAR]
From the state of syrup to the most highly-concentrated state in which it is used in pastry sugar passes through various stages of cooking, which are:—The small thread (215° F.) and the large thread (222° F.), the small ball (236° F.) and the large ball (248° F.), the small crack (285° F.) and the large crack (315° F.). When the last state is overreached, the sugar has become caramel (360° F.).
Put the necessary quantity of loaf sugar in a small, copper saucepan; moisten with enough water to melt it, and boil. Carefully remove the scum which forms, and which might cause the sugar to granulate.
As soon as the sugar begins to move stiffly in boiling, it is a sign that the water has almost entirely evaporated, and that the real cooking of the sugar has begun.
From this moment, with moistened fingers or a little piece of moistened linen, take care to remove the crystallised sugar from the sides of the utensil, lest it makes the remaining portion turn.
The cooking of the sugar then progresses very rapidly, and the states of its various stages, coming one upon the other in quick succession at intervals of a few minutes, may be ascertained as follows:—
It has reached the small-thread stage, when a drop of it held between the thumb and the first finger forms small resistless strings when the thumb and finger are drawn apart.