A lot of people think caramel is hard to make. If this is you, don’t
worry, I used to feel totally dumbfounded by caramel too. I tried recipe
after recipe but something always seemed to get screwed up. Eventually I
discovered what I was doing wrong and since then I’ve realized that
caramel is actually very easy as long as you follow some rules. Let’s
talk about some of the problems with caramel:
Problem #1: When you start the caramel by putting
the sugar, water, and corn syrup in a pan, a little OCD person inside of
you says “look at how undistributed those ingredients are, stir it,
STIR IT!!!!”
Tell that evil voice to shut up and do not stir it. Otherwise, this
will be the death of your caramel before you even began, and your
caramel will crystallize and get gritty. Even though the ingredients
look undistributed, it will all eventually melt into a very homogenous
sugar syrup, like this:
Problem #2: caramel requires patience + human beings are not patient = burned caramel
When you make caramel, you need to watch it. Caramel is a diva, you
see. It’s going to take its sweet time getting brown at all, then when
you turn your back to the stove for two seconds to get a spoon, it’s
practically on fire (okay, I’m exaggerating a little). It’s in our
nature to look for shortcuts and do things faster but keep the heat at
medium and be patient with it.
After the sugar turns clear, it will start to develop a golden honey amber color, like this:
To make these caramels pumpkin-y, heat up some cream, pumpkin puree, butter, and spices in the microwave:
Give it a good stir and you’ll have a pumpkin cream mixture:
Standing back (it will bubble ferociously), add the pumpkin cream to your amber sugar syrup:
And this brings us to…
Problem #3: You don’t have the right tools.
You can follow all the necessary rules for making caramel but if you
don’t start with the proper equipment, your journey to caramel will be
rough.
- Use a heavy pan with a thick bottom. If you make your caramel in a super crappy, thin bottomed pan, the bottom layer of your caramel will likely scorch.
- Use an accurate thermometer. You need to cook this
to the soft ball stage, to 248 degrees F. There’s no way you can guess
that. Spend $20 and get a thermometer like this if you don’t have one. There are several brands that make some well rated thermometers in the $20 range.
- Use a good spatula that can scrape the bottom of
the pan well. Okay, so you’re probably wondering how can you use a
spatula if you’re not supposed to stir? After you’ve fortified the
caramel with butter and cream, you can stir the caramel without risking
crystallization.
Which brings me back to Good News #1. I’m pretty sure I’ve found my dream spatula.
I’ve had spatulas snap in half in my hands (no more plastic spatulas for me).
I’ve had spatulas taint my food with unwanted smells and tastes that they’ve absorbed.
And I’ve had ones that were pretty good quality, but I had to hand wash them. I
hate
handwashing dishes. Stop for a moment and think about this blog, then
think about how many dishes you might imagine I do. Yes, it’s a lot.
This dream spatula goes straight in the dishwasher, is heat resistant
to 500 degrees F, and has good heft and quality to it…and it’s pretty
=)
It’s made by a small family-owned company named
Dexas.
They sent me some of their tools to try about a month back, and since I
loved them so much, I asked if they would do a giveaway for my readers!
Yield: 8x8 pan
Ingredients:
- 1.5 cups sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup light corn syrup
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 3/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/16 tsp ground allspice
- 1/16 tsp ground ginger
- 1/16 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- good quality sea salt, for sprinkling
Directions:
- Line an 8x8 pan with parchment paper.
-
Place the sugar, water, and corn syrup in a saucepan (don't stir it
together) and cook over medium heat until amber colored (approximately
10 minutes). Again, don't stir during this process (you risk
crystallizing the caramel), just swirl it gently in the pan if you need
to move it around a bit.
-
In the meantime, heat the cream, pumpkin puree, butter, salt, and
all the spices together until melted, either in a saucepan or in the
microwave.
-
Once the sugar syrup has turned to an amber color, slowly and
carefully pour in the pumpkin cream mixture, being aware that the
caramel will bubble up a lot (wear oven mitts if you're concerned).
-
Return the pan to medium heat and cook for about 15 more minutes
until it reaches 248 on a thermometer (the soft ball stage), adding the
vanilla extract right before it reaches 248. Pour into the parchment
lined dish and refrigerate for a few hours until hard enough to cut into
squares, then sprinkle the tops with a little bit of sea salt. Enjoy!
Recipe
note: You can substitute the spices in this recipe with 1/2 tsp pumpkin
pie spice if you have that on hand.
Recipe note #2: I've made this both with an electric stove and a gas
stove, and as expected, cooking with a gas stove will go much quicker.
Be sure to keep your eye on the caramel.
Chocolate Dipped Coffee Spice Caramels
