I’m glad you asked, it’s a neat example of chemistry in action. When you heat sucrose, it begins to break down around 160 °C. The first thing that happens is dehydration – water is stripped off – and the remaining molecules rearrange into new structures. Those new structures scatter light in a golden‑brown color and carry the sweet, buttery flavor we call caramel. The key is to keep the heat steady and watch the temperature; once you hit around 170–180 °C, the reaction speeds up rapidly. If you let it cool too quickly you’ll get a hard, brittle candy, but if you keep it at just the right temperature for the right time you’ll get that glossy, silky sauce. Think of it as a controlled sequence of bond breaks and re‑forms – pretty elegant, isn’t it?