Sugar syrup

Ingredients (20)

• water: 60 ml
• ghee: 3 tsp
• water 60ml
• ghee 5tsp
• water-40 ml
• ghee-1 tsp
• water: 60 ml water
• water: 60 ml
• ghee: 3tsp
• water: 2tbsp
• ghee: 1/2tsp
• water: 60 ml water
• water: 60 ml water
• cardamom powder: 1/4tsp
• water: 60 ml water
• water: 3tbsp
• ghee: 3tsp
• cardamom powder : 1/4tsp
• water : 1/2 cup
• ghee: 6 tsp

Method

1. 1

   Solution: Make it dependent only on cooking time/ number of whistles.

2. 2

   Credit: Developed for OPOS

3. 3

   Indian cuisine calls for various stages of sugar syrups for various sweets. Estimating the consistency of sugar syrup demands great skill. Even a few seconds difference can alter the consistency and doom the recipe.

4. 4

   Traditional recipes do not rely on a thermometer but on touch, to estimate the consistency. This demands a great deal of skill. Generations of cooks have struggled to master the consistency the traditional way, with their hearts in their mouths, as it is so easy to go wrong.

5. 5

   For generations, this is how we were estimating the stage of sugar syrup:

6. 6

   Add equal quantity of sugar and water in a pan and bring to a boil. Stir once and leave it undisturbed. After a few minutes, if you touch the syrup, it will be sticky. This is called the sticky stage. This syrup is used for soaking sweets like Gulab jamun.

7. 7

   On continued heating, the syrup passes through the stages below :

8. 8

   Hold a drop of syrup between your forefinger and thumb, it will form a string but will immediately break, when you pull and forefinger and thumb gently apart.

9. 9

   Hold a drop of syrup between your forefinger and thumb, one string will be formed between your fingers when you separate them. This is the consistency needed for ladoo, jalebi and mysore pak.

10. 10

    Hold a drop of syrup between your forefinger and thumb. Two strings will be formed between your fingers when you separate them. This is used for sweets like badusha and hard burfis.

11. 11

    Soft ball: When you drop a bit of syrup in water, it will set into a soft ball.

12. 12

    Hard ball: When you drop a bit of syrup in water, it will set into a hard ball. If you drop the ball on a plate, it will sound like a stone hitting the plate. This is the consistency used for Chikkis.

13. 13

    Caramel: On further heating, you reach the caramel stage. This is rarely used for Indian sweets. Any further heating browns the sugar and eventually turns it to carbon.

14. 14

    Jaggery also melts the same way. We needed to deskill the way we estimate the stage of the syrup.

15. 15

    We believed deskilling sugar syrup held the key to many families of Indian sweets. After all, a coconut burfi is nothing but grated coconut held in sugar syrup. A Kaju Katli is just cashew paste bound by sugar syrup. A Peanut Chikki is just roasted peanuts set in jaggery syrup . A boondi laddoo is just boondi stuck with sugar syrup. A Mysorepak is just gram flour set in sugar syrup.

16. 16

    We started with the traditional recipe of 1 part of sugar to one part of water, but it took too long. After numerous trials, we settled on 1 part of sugar to 1/4 part of water. We cooked it under controlled conditions and tried to match the syrup consistency with number of whistles. Later, we extended it to jaggery. The table below summarises the experiment.

17. 17

    We were trying to crack the holy grail of south Indian sweets, Mysorepak (gramflour fudge). The traditional recipe calls for equal quantities of gram flour, sugar, water and ghee. As in all OPOS recipes, we wanted to minimise the use of fat and after many trials, settled on a ratio of 1:1:1/4:1/4 for Sugar:Roasted gram flour: Water: Ghee

18. 18

    The following recipe was proposed:

19. 19

    Mix 1C sugar (200g), 1/4C water, 1/4C ghee. Cook at high heat (900 W) for 4 to 7 whistles. Release pressure. Mix in 1C (100g) well roasted gram flour. Pour in a greased plate & cut.

20. 20

    This simple recipe generated over 200 validations. It was raining Mysorepaks for a long time.

21. 21

    This technique unlocked a huge variety of variety of burfis, mysorepaks, katlis, chikkis and other sugar syrup based sweets. Soon, we extended the same logic to jaggery.

22. 22

    Do note that the stages are not precise, as there is no way to check. The smell and the time per whistle have been used as indicators to estimate the stages. But you can easily find the stage that works for you by using this table as a starting point. Sugar/ jaggery is very finicky and you need to follow the measures, timing and heat settings precisely.

23. 23

    Members have used this technique as a base to generate a huge variety of their own recipes, a few of which are listed below:

24. 24

    Madhumita Sundaresan's Kaju milk cake

25. 25

    Release pressure.

26. 26

    Mix in cashew powder 150 grams, unsweetened milk powder 100 grams.

27. 27

    Pour in a greased plate & slice.

28. 28

    Levi Levinika's White chocolate milky bars.

29. 29

    Water 60ml (1/4cup)

30. 30

    Release pressure & mix in 2C milk powder and 1/4 cup of hot full cream milk.

31. 31

    Let set & slice.

32. 32

    Bhavani Ganesan's Cashew Nokkal

33. 33

    Whistles- 10 to 12

34. 34

    Release pressure

35. 35

    Mix 100g Whole roasted cashews, half the powdered sugar. Dust with remaining sugar

36. 36

    Priya ShankarRaman's Milk Burfi

37. 37

    Release pressure

38. 38

    Mix 300g milk powder

39. 39

    Pour in a greased plate & slice

40. 40

    Dharini Gopal's Nuts and raisins chocolate

41. 41

    Release pressure.

42. 42

    Mix 150g milk powder, 100g cocoa powder.

43. 43

    Pour in a greased plate, Top with 1/4C nuts & raisins

44. 44

    Priya ShankarRaman's Kaaju katli

45. 45

    Release pressure