• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

CooksInfo

  • Home
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Recipes
  • Food Calendar
menu icon
go to homepage
search icon
Homepage link
  • Recipes
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Food Calendar
×
Home » Cooking Techniques » Hard-Crack Stage

Hard-Crack Stage

Hard-Crack StageHard-Crack Stage
© Randal Oulton

Contents hide
  • 1 The stages of cooking sugar syrup are:
  • 2 Cooking Tips

Hard-Crack Stage is a cooking term meaning that a sugar syrup being heated has reached 149 – 154 C (300 – 310 F.)

It is a test of how hot a sugar syrup is, and of how much water is left in it. At this point of heating, the sugar concentration in the syrup is 99%.

You test by drizzling a small amount of the sugar syrup from a spoon into a cup of cold water. If the stage has been reached, the syrup will form threads. You may actually hear cracking and be alarmed that it’s the glass cracking, but it is the sugar.

Reaching this stage requires a lot of constant stirring, at first with a whisk to ensure blending, then a wooden spoon. Once the Hard-Crack Stage is reached, proceed with the recipe immediately before the sugar syrup turns to rock (it will also turn amber if heated more.) You have to work fast, as it begins to set immediately. But, you must be very careful with sugar syrup this hot.

The Hard-Crack Stage is called for in recipes for crunchy candies such as peanut brittle, barley sugar, etc.

The stages of cooking sugar syrup are:

1. Thread Stage (106 – 112 C)
2. Soft-Ball Stage (112 – 116 C)
3. Firm-Ball Stage (118 – 121 C)
4. Hard-Ball Stage (121 – 130 C)
5. Soft-Crack Stage (132 – 143 C)
6. Hard-Crack Stage (149 – 154 C)

Cooking Tips

High altitude: For every 300 metres (1,000 feet) that you are above sea level, subtract 1 degree C (2 degrees F) from the temperatures given in your candy recipe.

This page first published: Jun 27, 2004 · Updated: Jun 24, 2018.

This web site generates income from affiliated links and ads at no cost to you to fund continued research · Information on this site is Copyright © 2023· Feel free to cite correctly, but copying whole pages for your website is content theft and will be DCMA'd.

Tagged With: Candy Terms

Primary Sidebar

Search

    Today is

  • St Brigid’s Day
    St Brigid's Cross
  • Baked Alaska Day

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • About this site
  • Privacy Policy
  • Copyright enforced!
  • Terms & Conditions

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Site

  • Recipes
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Food Calendar

This web site generates income from affiliated links and ads at no cost to you to fund continued research · The text on this site is © Copyright.