Sticky Sauces

Into every cook's life, a bit of obsession must come, I suppose. Not to mention downfall. And into mine has come disastrous caramel sauces. I love custards, and happily cook and strain away until the result is slidingly silky-smooth, without too much egg flavor. However, all this hard work is nearly ruined by the experience of trying to make a caramel sauce without burning the sugar or myself, or serving boiled sugar water.

And so it was that I happily discovered that the September/October 2000 issue of Cook's Illustrated had a Foolproof Caramel Sauce recipe. Mostly happily, anyway. It has been my sad experience that anytime this magazine says "Foolproof" I can prove them wrong.

The trouble with caramel is that the sugar desperately wants to recrystallize, thus discouraging too much stirring, which can then lead to burning. And most recipes give approximations of time involved for the cooking, without ever being overly specific, or mentioning a temperature.

The Cook's Illustrated recipe fixes that. Using a lot of water, (and adding sugar to the water, rather than the other way around) a careful eye combined with accurate measurements in time and temp, the sauce was much easier to create. No burning, no tears. And a hefty dose of cream finished off the product to a sweet smoothness.

The other recipes--for Chicken Cacciatore, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, and Vegetable Stock will all be tried in their time. For now, I'm just enjoying my sweet success.

The magazine also has revamped their website lately, and is much more pleasant to use. Take a look at http://www.cooksillustrated.com

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