Crème Caramel

Caramelizing sugar—raising melted sugar to the precise point, a touch more than 300 degrees, where it turns a uniformly gold color but not beyond (when it will turn bitter and then burn)—is a tricky bit of kitchen chemistry possible in Europe only after refined white sugar became readily available, with the establishment of Caribbean plantations in the sixteenth century.

As a practical matter, caramelizing the interior of a pudding mold for crème caramel makes it possible to unmold