Berlingot

• Scant 5 cups sugar (1 kilo)
• 3 tablespoons vinegar (40 grams)
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons water (250 grams)
• Essential oils ? assorted flavors
• Food color paste ? assorted colors

1. Before you begin this recipe, please take a class from a professional on working with sugar.
2. This is a skill that professional pastry chefs develop after years of experience.
3. Working with sugar will burn your fingers so know before you start that your fingers will develop burn blisters.
4. Place the sugar, vinegar and water in a saucepan over high heat.
5. Insert a candy thermometer and cook until the sugar reaches 320 degrees F. Use a pastry brush to keep the inside of the saucepan clean as the sugar cooks or the sugar may recrystallize.
6. To do this, dip a clean brush in cold water and brush the inside of the pan clean.
7. Pour the cooked sugar onto 3 or 4 silicone baking mats.
8. If you want to color and/or flavor the sugar with food colors and/or flavored oils, this is the time to do so.
9. Add a few drops of color to the sugar.
10. Mix with a wooden skewer.
11. To get started, push the sugar from the sides toward the center.
12. This process takes a little while.
13. Try to keep the sugar divided by color.
14. Use the mat to push the firm sugar around the edges toward the center.
15. Use a folding motion to accomplish that task.
16. The next step is to pick up the sugar with your hands.
17. Place each color under the heat of the sugar lamp.
18. Pull the sugar until it becomes glossy and the color is evenly distributed.
19. You will need to pull the colors simultaneously.
20. Keep them under the sugar lamp but keep an eye on them.
21. The lamp can melt the sugar so it is important keep rotating it and folding it onto itself.
22. Cut a piece of 2 colors.
23. Make into 2 big cigars.
24. Combine the 2 colors by twisting them around each other.
25. Roll to a thickness of about 1/2-inch.
26. Use the scissors to cut the pieces of candy from the end.
27. Cut a 1/2-inch piece, give the roll a half turn, cut again and continue until you've used the whole roll.
28. Be careful the candy does not touch the other pieces or it will stick together.
29. That?s Berlingot.

sugar, vinegar, water, color paste

Taken from www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/berlingot-recipe.html (may not work)