Tacho de cobre

A wide copper preserving pan: doce de leite, fruit pastes, and Brazilian sweets that need an even blush of heat.

Also called tacho de cobre, copper preserving pan · From Brazil and Portugal

A wide copper tacho of caramelizing milk with a wooden paddle and a bowl of sugar.

The journey

Brazilian confectioners still stir in copper. A tacho de cobre is wide and shallow so water leaves and sugar does not scorch. The same pot, under a Portuguese name, cooked the sweets that crossed the Atlantic.

A nonstick saucepan sticks the moment you look away. Copper tells you with color.

A 1780 map of Brazil — the kitchens whose sweets still want copper. — Rigobert Bonne, map of northern Brazil (1780) · Public domain. Source

In the kitchen

Keep the flame moderate. Stir with a wooden paddle. Watch the color more than the clock.

The Brazilian volume's sweets assume this pan. A wide stainless pot is the weekday stand-in if you stay patient.

Used in these ComidaTime kitchens

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