It only takes a few tools to make homemade candy. A good sturdy bottomed pot, a measuring cup, something to stir with, and a thermometer. If you’re really good, you can even do without a couple of these…

Heated sugar goes through lots of stages. An astute eye can see them, but most of us need to use various methods to discover what stage it’s at. At roughly 230ºF sugar forms thin gossamer stings like a spider web when you drip it into cool water. At just 5º more it will form tight little balls. From here, the balls of sugar when dropped into water will just get harder in increments as you approach 265ºF. At around 270ºF something cool happens. The sugary strands and balls you drip into water will remain plyable, and soft when removed. By the time you hit 300º the sugar when retrieved will be hard like a jawbreaker.

At 320ºF something really magic begins to happen; the sugar begins to caramelize. “Caramelize” being just a pretty word for burn. But like a steak on the grill it’s the little black bits that make the flavor. If you heat the sugar to 338ºF give or take a couple, it breaks down to form complex compounds that create an unbelievably rich mixture of flavors. Above 350º and the sugar isn’t caramel anymore, it’s bitter, black, and disgusting.

Just 12º exist between perfect caramel and sticky ashes. If you’ve ever made anything on a stovetop you know it can be tough to control heat in 50º increments, more/less 12º. You might also know that acceleration of heat matters, -things keep cooking when you are done. It’s a challenge of talent, patience, reaction, and intuition to get it right.

I’m not a candymaker, but this whole thing sounds familiar to me. As a graphic designer I work on projects that go through stages. I struggle to add enough heat in the beginning to get to the next stage. I work sometimes days on end to keep evolving the design through stages of hopefully increasing quality. Midway through, it seems that the changes I make start to affect the overall design more dramatically. Really late in the game, it’s all about knowing when to quit.

Design, like sugar, requires talent, patience, reaction, and intuition. I’ll be honest-I’ve been burning lots of designs I work on lately. I take some consolation in hoping that it might be as easy as backing off the heat just a tiny bit to get it to turn from black to golden yummy brown.