How to make a basic caramel

So today I’m going to make a simple caramel for you so in a pan we have caster sugar which has been set straight with water and another glucose syrup, glucose syrup we add to the caramel to help stop crystallisation which would make the caramel unusable so that's in there for the sole reason to help stop the sugar crystallising, so we place that on the heat to dissolve on a medium temperature, once it’s dissolved we’re going to turn up the heat to bring it to a boil and then cook it for about ten minutes, ten to twelve minutes until we reach our lovely blonde, golden caramel colour, okay now our caramel is up to a boil, it’s nice and smooth, everything has mixed in and dissolved correctly.

Now at this stage we're going to cook it to the right colour of caramel that we want, it’s important

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at this stage that we don’t try to stir it or agitated in any way with a metal spoon or a heatproof Marice because that will potentially crystallize the caramel, crystallize at this stage we won’t be able to use it, okay so the sugar is starting to take colour now, I’m just going to give it a little movement in the pan and to make sure it’s colouring evenly.

This is very important at this stage, don’t be tempted to taste it, it’s super hot it’s at 190 degrees, so don’t be tempted to put your finger in it as it’ll result in a bad burn. Now we’ve reached our colour all I’m going to do is pour it out onto a piece of silicon paper like I have here for the sugar to cool down and there we have our basic caramel.

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