Spun Sugar

Ingredients

• 2 lb sugar
• 2 cup boiling water
• 0.25 tsp cream of tartar

Method

Combine the sugar, boiling water, and cream of tartar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan with a pale interior — you need to see the colour shift clearly. Do not stir once the mixture reaches a boil; stirring introduces unwanted crystallisation. The acid in the cream of tartar inverts the sucrose molecules, preventing graining. Watch the syrup steadily, and when the edges begin to turn from clear to pale amber, stop watching and pay attention to the colour advancing towards the centre. The moment the syrup turns the colour of light honey throughout — around 160°C — remove it from the heat immediately. Caramelisation happens fast at this stage; overshooting by ten degrees will turn the syrup bitter and brown.

If sugar crystals have formed on the pan's sides, dampen a pastry brush and wash them down into the syrup before you begin heating. Do this once, at the start. The moment you reach temperature, plunge the base of the pan into a bowl of cold water for 10 seconds to arrest the cooking. Transfer it immediately to a bowl of hot water — the syrup must stay fluid and workable, around 70°C, or it will set before you spin it.

Set up two sturdy wooden dowels or broomstick handles across the backs of two chairs, positioned over a work surface covered with greaseproof paper. The syrup will be tacky and will cool rapidly on contact with anything. Dip a fine spider strainer or special sugar fork into the syrup and, holding it 15 centimetres above the dowels, move it back and forth in rapid, controlled flicks. The thin streams of syrup will set mid-air into delicate threads. Work quickly — you have perhaps two minutes before the syrup stiffens in the pan. If it becomes too thick, return the bowl to the hot water for 15 seconds.

Gather the cooled sugar threads carefully — they shatter if you're clumsy — and form them into loose nests or pile them into airy mountains on chilled plates. Spun sugar holds shape for several hours in dry conditions, but humidity will cause it to weep. Serve alongside frozen sugar-work showpieces, vanilla ice cream, or glacé fruit. The structure collapses when wet, which is why it sits on or around the plate, never submerged.