How do u carmalize sugar sucessfully?!

How do u carmalize sugar sucessfully?

so i have to do it to make flan
and the instructions say that it has to turn brown
mine never does that
it stays clear/white
and it continues to stay that color until all the water is evaporated and its dried up.

i'm using white sugar

what am i doing wrong?

you can caramelize sugar the hard way -- put the sugar in a heavy skillet over low heat and watch it, adjusting the flame as necessary, until it melts and starts to turn brown. This method requires that you stand over the stove and keep an eye on the sugar so that it doesn't burn. Some say you can't stir it when you do it this way or you'll get lumps, but if you wait and stir once the bulk of the sugar is liquid, you can avoid the lumps since the hot syrup will melt the few lumps you will get.

The easy way -- add 2 cups of sugar to 1 cup of boiling water in a heavy pan, creating a supersaturated solution. keep it at a rolling boil. Once the water boils out, the sugar will continue to cook and start to caramelize (turn brown) and you should turn it down to low and then keep an eye on it so that you don't burn it. Don't stir it, but you can cover the pan for a little while to "wash" any sugar crystals back into the pan..

You probably didn't cook your sugar long enough to caramelize. You want the water to boil out, leaving the sugar to cook. The advantage to this method is that the sugar is already liquid when it starts to cook, rather than in crystal form like in the "hard way."

To make sure that the syrup is caramelized enough, dip the end of a spoon into the syrup and drip it on to a white plate. Do this as many time as you need to until you see that the color is a rich caramel brown. Immediately pour the hot syrup into your flan dish. You can do this the day before if you want. It'll keep in the fridge overnight.