I must admit, that I still botch up a batch of caramel once in a while. It is okay, when I only waste the sugar, but sometimes I add the butter and in the end I find out that I wen too far with my caramel… It’s burnt, or just a bit too dark and bitter.

My wife pulled an old IH cooker out of the closet, which we received once from a company resort that closed down here in the neighborhood. The hotplate has a thermostat and can be set to any temperature between 50 and 200 degrees.

When she pulled it out, I thought, well since it has a thermostat, perhaps I should use it to make caramel.

IH cooker\r\nI had no idea what an IH cooker was, so I went online to find out. IH, stands for Induction Heat. Apparently Induction Heat cookers were only introduced to the market around the 80”s. Before I go any further, I will explain what an IH cooker is:\r\n

The IH system was invented in the hope of making electric cookers better than gas ones. Here is how an IH cooker works. An electric current is passed through coils around the pot. This produces a magnetic field, which in turn produces an electric current in the pot’s metal. Metal heats up when an electric current runs through it, so the entire pot quickly rises to a high temperature.

So I set out to do my caramel in a thick bottom stainless steel pot on top of the IH cooker. The process was quite slow, but the result was perfect. The sugar slowly became all liquid and slowly turned pale brown. I just walked off and came back about every 10 minutes. About an hour later, when I came back, the sugar had turned to a dark brown caramel. I cooled the pot by dipping the bottom in cold water and started adding the butter. After a bit more cooling, I added the right amount of water to produce the right consistency for the stroopwafel caramel.

The whole process was quite a lot easier, albeit slower, than making caramel on a gas burner, so I will prepare my caramel from now on on the Induction Heat burner.\r\n\r\nNote: Anyone with a pacemaker or defibrillator should not use one of these stoves as it may cause complications with such electrical devices.’