An alternative for "rock candy"

[karlp]

Some of the belgian recipes call to use rock candy, and we were talking a bit about it at the last meeting. The only real difference is the colour it gives. Anyway, I promised to share the australian cookery book recipe for this:

3 cups sugar (plain, white table sugar)
1 cup water
1/4 cup brown vinegar (edik: In australian "brown" vinegar can be found. I used a mix of white "borðedik" with a little bit of red wine)

1. stir over low heat until sugar dissolves
2. turn up the heat, and boil 15 minutes. (if you spoon a little bit into cold water, it should crack. If you boil 10-12 minutes, and drop a little into cold water it will make a squishy ball. This is excellent for chewy toffee, terrible for belgian rock candy)
3 Remove from heat, stand pot in cold water for 1 minute.
4. Remove pan from cold water, and leave still until all the air bubbles are gone. (Mostly cosmetic at this stage)

That's it. If you're making this to eat, you normally put them in little paper cups, and decorate them, but for rock candy, just wait until it's hard, and then start cracking it into rocks.