Onion Sugar

[lordratner]

Help! I'm trying to make an Onion Sugar. Its Onion Juice, glucose, and sugar (or isomalt for a reduced sweetness). Chris Hennes tried this back in 2012 and got the same results I did: very dark, slightly burnt, still slightly sticky and impossible to grind back into powder. 

 

Has anyone tried this with success? The sugar needs to reach the hard crack stage so it can be ground back into a powder, but basically remain as clear and un-carmelized as possible. 

 

Help me Gods of Glucose, Sultans of Sucrose, Kings of Caramel, Masters of... whatever. Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

Seth

[CatPoet]

Oh I manage to  get onion sugar by mistake a few days ago..  but it was just browned onions and my daughter trying to help by adding 1 cup of brown sugar.  It sett hard.. it tasted  like onion, with onion bits and we came to the conclusion Onion candy is not  good. 

[Mjx]

Could you simply use a recipe for hard candy/boiled sweets, substituting part of the water with onion juice? When using some mixture of sugar+glucose syrup+water, as long as I've kept an eye on the thermometer, I've never had any problem with the mixture browning before it reaches the hard crack stage (300–310° F° /148–154° C). I know that onion juice has some sugar of its own, but I don't think it should increase the browning significantly (although there may also be enzymes in there that factor into browning)

[lordratner]

Could you simply use a recipe for hard candy/boiled sweets, substituting part of the water with onion juice? When using some mixture of sugar+glucose syrup+water, as long as I've kept an eye on the thermometer, I've never had any problem with the mixture browning before it reaches the hard crack stage (300–310° F° /148–154° C). I know that onion juice has some sugar of its own, but I don't think it should increase the browning significantly (although there may also be enzymes in there that factor into browning)

I'm guessing it has to be the onion solids suspended in the juice. My results were just like Chris's here: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/141972-eg-foodblog-chris-hennes-2012-chocolate-tamales-modernism-etc/page-4#entry1864765

 

I don't know that adding water will change anything, but I'll give it a shot. The added water will still have to be boiled out with the onion juice. 

 

It can't be a high-heat probelm. My first attempt was in an oven at 310F and it browned slowly over the course of the cooking time, which was well over and hour. The mixture only reached ~220F and it was already a medium brown. I moved to the stove top and got it closer, but only to ~266F, maybe a touch higher. At this point it was very dark and like Chris's results, tasted of onion but somewhat burnt. Still, the sugar was sticky enough that it could not be ground to a powder. 

 

I guess I'll have to try a very high heat, see if it's a matter of the onion juice being exposed to heat for too long. I filtered the onion juice through coffee filters to get out most of the solids. The recipe in MC didn't specifically call for centrifuged juice, so I'm a bit stumped. It's a pity too, because the mixture is actually quite tasty before it gets too dark. 

[CatPoet]

I would try  too cook it slower, lower heat but not too low.  That is the trick to get clear  glass window or tainted ( using fruits syrup) at Christmas, slow and steady and  trying to not burn it.  And that sets hard.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I am not a much of a candy maker, nor a Modernist at all, so I would approach this with a different tool.

 

Vanilla sugar is made by just burying vanilla beans in sugar over time and letting the sugar take on its aroma. If I were to try onion sugar, and it sounds good, based on a quick onion pan bread I make from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything." The bread calls for caramelized onions and brown sugar on the bottom of the pan as the bread bakes.

 

I would probably try mixing some not too wet sliced onion (not Vidalias, and not spring) with some brown and white sugar, closing that up in a container for a while. I'd stir it everyday to test my hypothesis that the sugars would prevent decomp and to distribute the onion flavor into the sugars more evenly. I also believe the sugars would draw out the onion juices and essences, without the solids through osmosis into the drier sugar.

 

I'd see what I had after a while, and if I liked it as is, I'd use it like that. People who are less terrified of boiling sugar may want to caramelize the sugars after sorting the onion out, and then grind them. I think the flavor of the onion may change on the high heat of carmelization of sugar though. Caramelization of onions never comes near those high temps.

 

ETA: Just to make it clearer that there's still some water content in caramelized onions even after the sugars begin to brown. This keeps the temp down. When one drives off all the water, you have bitter, burnt onions.

 

Just sayin'. 

Edited April 26, 2015 by Thanks for the Crepes (log)

[thayes1c]

What about adding a pinch of baking soda to the onions? It speeds the browning and breaks down the onions faster, turning it jammy pretty quickly. From there it may be easier to dehydrate without burning.

Ed: oh, I reread it and realized you don't want to caramelize or use whole onions. Well, shoot. I don't know how to help.

Edited April 26, 2015 by thayes1c (log)

[Shalmanese]

I wonder if you could thinly slice the onions and toss in the sugar for an hour. The sugar should pull out the onion juices via osmosis while making sure there's no dissolved solids. I'm fairly sure it's the solids that are burning and turning bitter.

[Mjx]

I'm guessing it has to be the onion solids suspended in the juice. My results were just like Chris's here: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/141972-eg-foodblog-chris-hennes-2012-chocolate-tamales-modernism-etc/page-4#entry1864765

 

I don't know that adding water will change anything, but I'll give it a shot. The added water will still have to be boiled out with the onion juice. 

 

It can't be a high-heat probelm. My first attempt was in an oven at 310F and it browned slowly over the course of the cooking time, which was well over and hour. The mixture only reached ~220F and it was already a medium brown. I moved to the stove top and got it closer, but only to ~266F, maybe a touch higher. At this point it was very dark and like Chris's results, tasted of onion but somewhat burnt. Still, the sugar was sticky enough that it could not be ground to a powder. 

 

I guess I'll have to try a very high heat, see if it's a matter of the onion juice being exposed to heat for too long. I filtered the onion juice through coffee filters to get out most of the solids. The recipe in MC didn't specifically call for centrifuged juice, so I'm a bit stumped. It's a pity too, because the mixture is actually quite tasty before it gets too dark. 

 

I'm not at home, so I can't check MC, but I can't think of how you could melt dry[ish] sugar at a temperature that's low enough to do that without browning.

I wouldn't go with really high heat, myself, because you get so little wiggle room in terms of being able to stop at the precise point you want to reach.

Once the sugar and water mixture reaches the temperature you want, you don't need to boil off any water: you just start working with it (in this case, pour it out in a sheet, I guess, so you can grind it).

[Tri2Cook]

I'm not sure if this would be of any help to you or not. I remembered seeing it years ago when I saw this topic and dug around until I found it. It looks like it could be ground into a powder to me but I've never actually tried it.