How can I succesfully brown/melt sugar without burning it?

Use a non-stick, Makes cleanup a breeze. Just put the sugar into the pot and it depends what you are making whether you stir or don't stir or add any water or anything to it.If you are making sponge toffee, you don't touch it, you just let it do it's thing until you add the baking soda. If you are making burnt sugar for caramel then you can add about a 1/4 cup of water to 2 cups of sugar and stir once in a while, Takes about ten minutes but be careful, when it STARTS browning, it turns to blackened very quickly.