choosing a saucepan material for creams and caramels

Question

I quite enjoy baking and i'm considering moving to making my own creams and caramels (and other sugar based work). Currently I have a bunch of old scratched up teflon pots that probably should be binned.

For sugar based work, you generally have to work with high temperatures, so my teflon based pans are possibly unsuited for this. Is stainless steel the defacto material for this kind of work or should i be looking at anything else... perhaps the new ceramic coated non teflon based nonstick pans?

Answer 1

Unlined copper is sometimes used for serious sugar work, but it is very expensive and requires maintenance.

For general home use where you want to get more than one use from the pan, a good multi-ply stainless pan is probably the best choice in terms of utility and easy of maintenance.

You do not want ceramic coatings which can craze at high temperatures, nor teflon which can off-gas high temperatures, and which wears off over time.

For sugar work, non-stick is essentially not an issue at all: short of completely burning your confection, the worst case for clean up is that you put water in the pan and bring it to a boil until the sticking candy dissolves.