(upbeat music)
[Instructor] Sugar's soft-ball stage.
The soft-ball stage of sugar is when a syrup of sugar
and water is boiled until it starts to change texture.
It's commonly used for fondant, prawleens, and fudge.
We'll show you what we've assembled for this.
A candy thermometer warming up in some hot water,
a heavy-bottom sauce pan, and an ice bath
to cool the sugar later on.
In order to bring the sugar to the soft-ball stage,
start by putting the sugar into a heavy pan.
Use two parts sugar to one part water.
We'll add enough water to cover the sugar here.
Stir over a low heat until the sugar completely dissolves.
Now that the sugar is dissolved,
turn up the heat and boil the sugar rapidly.
When heating sugar, be aware that it becomes extremely hot.
The sugar is boiling, so we'll put the thermometer in.
Make sure that the thermometer is only in the liquid,
and not resting on the bottom of the pan,
otherwise you'll end up with an inaccurate reading.
Also, now that it's boiling,
don't stir the sugar or it could crystallize.
The only thing you'll do is turn the heat down.
Let's take a look at our thermometer.
It's at the soft-ball stage.
Let's check. Take a spoon, and spoon out a bit
of the syrup and put into the ice bath.
Do a few of them and see.
Be sure not to touch the syrup
until you've cooled it in the ice water.
It can burn you badly.
If the syrup forms into a soft, flexible ball,
like this, you've reached the soft-ball stage.
The sugar is now ready for use in your recipe.
