Dark Treacle

Dark Treacle as the name suggests is a dark and thick caramelized sugar syrup which is used to enhance the flavour and colour of Christmas fruit cakes. Since last few days, almost all food blogs and food groups on Facebook is flooded with recipes of Treacle, Golden syrup, ways to soak dry fruits and so on and so forth. After having successfully made the Golden syrup, the

next item in my to-do list was Treacle. Click here for the Anzac cookies recipe using Golden syrup, whole wheat flour, oats and dessicated coconut.

There are many videos on YouTube regarding the method of making treacle. I have followed Steve’s kitchen recipe. However I have halved the recipe since it was my first trial. The procedure to make this is pretty simple. You just need three ingredients to churn out this luscious dark n glossy syrup. All you need is some granulated sugar, water and a piece of lime. You need to caramelize some sugar with little water till it’s almost black in colour. Then add some more sugar and water along with the juice and peel of half a lime and simmer it till you get the desired consistency.

However, you need to be very careful while making this at home since you are dealing with sugar at almost 200 degree Celsius. Please keep small kids out of kitchen while you are preparing this. The syrup will thicken further as it cools. Store it in clean and dry sterilized glass jars and this will last really long. So, please try this and I am sure we wouldn’t spend huge amount of money and time in ordering this online 🙂 Almost all such recipes are available on the internet, we just need to take some extra efforts and dig them out and try them in our kitchen.

Ingredients:

• Sugar 100 gm
• Water 2 tbsp
• Sugar 250 gm
• Water 120 ml (1/2 cup)
• Lime 1/2

Method:

• Measure 100 gm and 250 gm sugar and keep it separately. Slice a lime into half, keep the thermometer and 2 tablespoon water ready.

• Add the 100 gram sugar in a big heavy bottom pan.
• Add around 2 tablespoon or 30 ml of water and heat it on low to medium flame.

• Do not stir the mixture, simply swirl the pan till the sugar melts and start changing colour.

• Meanwhile keep around 3/4 to 1 cup boiling water ready. Measure 250 grams of sugar.
• Keep close eye on the melting sugar. If you have a candy thermometer, you can keep checking the temperature.

• The colour will start changing from light golden to dark to dark brown to almost black. The temperature will rise upto 200 degree Celsius.

• When it’s almost black in colour and very thick, reduce the flame and slowly add the remaining sugar to it.

• Now add half cup boiling water. Do it very very carefully, as it might cause spillage. The very high temperature could be dangerous to handle. Please keep kids away from the kitchen whole you are making it.

• Mix well with a wooden spoon till the sugar melts.

• Add the juice of half a lime and add the peel to the mixture. The lime helps to prevent further crystallization of the sugar.

• Keep cooking and allow it to simmer on low flame.

• Now to check the doneness of this syrup, spoon a bit of it on a lid and allow it to cool for a minute.
• If consistency is too runny, you need to simmer for few more minutes.
• If it’s too thick add around 1/4 cup of boiling water.
• The ideal consistency is a thick scoopable one.
• Remove from flame and cool for few minutes
• Strain and store in sterilized glass jars.

• Use it in your fruit cakes for that perfect flavour and dark rich colour.