Sugar Boiling

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Food

By Alan Davidson

Published 2014

  • About

sugar boiling is a multi-stage process by which many familiar types of sugar confectionery are produced.

The principles of sugar boiling are simple. They depend on the chemical properties of common sugar (sucrose), when it is dissolved in water, to produce a syrup, and heated. Heating drives off some of the water, thus increasing the concentration and the temperature of the solution. Arresting this process at different temperatures and then cooling the mixture produces different textures. Texture and appearance can be further altered by the use of additional ingredients, and by the treatment of the mixture during cooling.