Basic cookery lesson
Sugar and water mixed (stirred) makes a solution. ie the sugar dissloves in the water.
Now if you boil that mixture, water only will boil off initially, later when most of the water is driven off, other things will happen,
As the sugar concentration rises, so does the temperature at which the remaining mix boils. Depenent on the boiling temperature at the time will determine whether the mix :
A) does not set - as in sugar syrup for feeding bees (not needed to be boiled for that!)
B) soft, goopy, almost runny fondant type material which likely has a use - for pouring over tea cakes to give a thin coat which will then dry further, perhaps.
C) Fondant as one requires for feeding the bees.
D) fondant which is too hard for feeding bees easily.
E) rock hard fondant.
F) a sort of caramel, chewy like toffee.
G) a rock hard caramel.
H) burned sugar and charcoal, if it doesn't actually catch fire!
There may be other useful products for the cook/chef, I don't know.
So you have to get the right temperature (and thermometers are likely to give reproducible readings, but are often far less than from accurate).
So you need to find the boiling temperature indication you require by trial and error or by using the dropping a 'a blob' into cold water and observing what happens.
A) would be nothing, through to the later ones which all give a changing reult in the test. I think for soft fodant a blob which does not break up too easily when picked out of the water is about right. Trial and error again. Once you get it right, it is easy to use that same boiling point indication (whatever it might be) to reproduce the product again and again.
Simple really, but easier said than done for some.
Regards, RAB
