In principle, the competent use of brown sugar can build a career. Because it has the most important advantage over white sugar – the complex, attractive and complete taste of molasses (this is a dark brown syrup obtained by cooking cane sugar; it is molasses that gives brown sugar its color). And exactly the same bouquet is acquired by everything that you cook with it, even caramel, even cream, even sauce. It is also good that the use of brown sugar makes any other seasonings and spices unnecessary; cinnamon, cloves and even cardamom pale before the molasses power. However, let’s start in order, with the simplest.
The easiest
Take a small saucepan. Place 3-4 tablespoons of brown sugar on the bottom. Then take a 15-25 grams piece of butter, cut it into small cubes and scatter them over the sugar. Shake the saucepan lightly to mix the sugar and butter. Place the saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the butter and sugar are combined. This will take you about 5 minutes.
What you get is already edible. The sugar crystals have not yet completely melted, but some of them have already caramelized – and gave their stupefying aroma to the butter. If you pour a little oatmeal on boiled oatmeal with this mixture, it will turn into a dish that the king will not be ashamed to have for breakfast.
However, you can continue. Add half a glass of cream to the saucepan, and not necessarily heavy. Reduce heat to low. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove the saucepan from heat, add a teaspoon of butter and stir quickly. You have got the simplest, but no less delicious dessert creamy sauce, perfect for any pie, and most of all – for apple. One problem: this sauce must be used immediately after cooking, otherwise it will harden.
There is another scenario for the development of events. Don’t touch the cream! Take an orange, or lemon, or lime, or a little of both, and the third, squeeze the juice out of it (from them) and pour into a saucepan. Let it boil, immediately remove from heat and stir. You have got a fragrant citrus sauce that can be served even with the same pie, or, if cooled, with ice cream. Yes, you can cool it as much as you like – the glucose contained in citrus juice will prevent the caramel from freezing.
Slightly harder
Now that you are no longer nervous, you can move on. Take a stewpan, but this time a medium size. Peel a couple of ripe but not overripe bananas. Cut them slightly obliquely, into thin slices. Put 5 tablespoons of brown sugar in a saucepan, add chopped butter. Place the saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter is melted, reduce heat to low. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is completely dissolved in the butter.
Add the chopped bananas to the saucepan, increase the heat to high. Take a heat-resistant (e.g. wooden) spatula. If you don’t have enough experience, put on oven mitts on your hands. Gently but vigorously stir the bananas and caramel for a minute. Then remove the saucepan from the heat, immediately place the bananas in bowls (in this case, two bowls), add a large spoonful of good ice cream on top, and serve immediately.
Roughly the same can be done with other fruits, as well as with berries. The advantage of bananas for such a dish is that they do not need to be washed and are very easy to peel. In addition, when heated and stirred, bananas give the sauce a small amount of starch, which gives the dish its characteristic consistency. Therefore, if you decide to cook in caramel not bananas, but something else, do not forget to do the following.
First, the fruit must be washed thoroughly. Secondly, dry it very thoroughly. An unnoticed drop of water, falling into hot caramel, will certainly produce a micro-explosion. If you intend to cook peeled fruits (for example, with plums, apricots and peaches, this is the only way you can), dry them again, and then lightly roll in starch. If we are talking about berries, either do not wash them at all (if you are sure that they are clean), or wash them, lay them on a paper towel folded in several layers and let them dry. Then start making the caramel.
Even harder
Fruit caramel is good. But the all-brown sugar reveals its tropical character in the crème brлеlée. If you’ve never cooked it, that’s okay. Creme brulee requires some meticulousness, but it pays off handsomely. Let’s make a reservation right away: the way the preparation of creme brulee is described below is not a classic. So it is prepared on the island of Guadeloupe, as well as in other overseas possessions of France.
So take 8 eggs. Separate the yolks from the whites (you don’t need whites for crème brulee; make, for example, an omelet with herbs). Place the yolks in a large bowl, add half a glass of brown sugar and whisk lightly. Then take 2 cups of cream (the fatter the better), pour them into a saucepan and heat slightly – because if you pour cold milk into the mixture of yolks and sugar, the sugar will dissolve for a very long time. However, keep in mind that the cream should not be hot, but only very warm.
So, pour the warmed up cream into a bowl of yolks and stir the mixture until the sugar is completely dissolved (it is convenient to do this with a mixer, at a low speed). Then pour the resulting cream into refractory molds; coffee cups are great as such molds. Place the tins on a high-edged baking sheet or in a large baking dish. Then pour enough water into the mold or on a baking sheet so that it reaches 2/3 the height of the cream molds. Place the dish or baking sheet in an oven preheated to 160-170 degrees.
Cook for 25-30 minutes, until the surface of the cream in the molds turns golden. Carefully remove the baking sheet from the oven, then even more carefully remove the molds from it and transfer them to the tray to cool. After 2 hours, when the crème brulee has cooled and acquired the proper consistency, it can be served. And you can do something else with it.
Pour 5-6 tablespoons of rum or brandy into a glass, add 3 tablespoons of brown sugar and stir quickly. Then scoop up some of this mixture with a spoon and pour it over the crème brulee into a mold. Then set it on fire. There is nothing particularly terrible in this, believe me – after half a minute the flame will go out, and the surface of the cream will be covered with the thinnest caramel crust.
options
In principle, we have described all the basic methods of using brown sugar in confectionery that do not require professional training. But no one will even undertake to list all their possible variations. So, any of the sauces mentioned above can be frozen – either by themselves or mixed with pieces of fruit, pieces of chocolate or pieces of cookies. Brown sugar caramel can be used to roast nuts.
Creme brulee can be served with very cold and very fresh sour cream – even if no one does this either in France or on the island of Guadeloupe. Among other things, you can influence the shades of taste by using different types of brown sugar. There are four of them, and they are quite different from each other. However, this requires a separate story.