CARAMELIZATION
Caramelizationis the name given to thechemical reactions that occur when anysugar is heated to the point that its molecules begin to break apart.This destruction triggers a remarkable cascade of chemicalcreation. From a single kind of molecule inthe form of colorless, odorless, simply sweetcrystals, the cook generates hundreds ofnew and different compounds, some ofthem small fragments that are sour or bitter,or intensely aromatic, others large aggre-gates with no flavor but a deep browncolor. The more the sugar is cooked, the lesssugar and sweetness remain, and the darkerand more bitter it gets.Though caramel is most often madewith table sugar, its sucrose molecules actu-ally break apart into their glucose and fruc-tose components before they begin tofragment and recombine into new mole-cules. Glucose and fructose are “reducingsugars,” meaning that they have reactiveatoms that perform the opposite of oxida-tion (they donate electrons to other mole-cules). A sucrose molecule is made fromone glucose and one fructose joined by theirreducing atoms, so sucrose has no reducingatoms free to react with other molecules,and is therefore less reactive than glucoseand fructose. This is why sucrose requires ahigher temperature for caramelization(340ºF/170ºC) than glucose (300ºF/150ºC)and especially fructose (220ºF/105ºC).