I’m finding it hard to believe that it’s already February. Where the heck did the first one-twelfth of 2012 go?
This past month has been a whirlwind of working, cooking, dining out and re-discovering free time after the last nine months of writing the book. I never truly appreciated the beauty of parking myself on the couch on a random Tuesday night and watching Real Housewives, Lockup, House Hunters, and Dance Moms (join the addiction!) marathons until my mind went numb. There’s something to be said for the relaxation power of reality TV.
I’ve also had much more time to get back into the kitchen and dream up culinary creations spanning everything from slow-cooker classics to an accidental homerun with my new favorite sandwich cookie. As I gear up for the release of Food Blogging For Dummies, I’ll also be sharing additional content with a behind-the-scenes look at writing the book, photo shoots and all. Chew your way through these sticky Salted Caramels while you stay tuned for tons of new recipes, new content and a whole lot of book giveaways to come!
Ingredients
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed
- 1 teaspoon large flake sea salt (Recommended: Maldon)
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/4 cup light corn syrup
- 1/4 cup water
Instructions
- Line an 8-inch square baking pan with lightly oiled parchment paper.
- Combine the heavy cream, cubed butter, and sea salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat and bring it to a boil. Once it's reached a boil, remove it from the heat and set it aside.
- In a separate medium saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup and water and place it over medium heat, bringing it to a boil and swirling until it's golden brown in color. Do not stir.
- Carefully stir the cream mixture into the sugar mixture. Be careful, as it will bubble up. Continue cooking the mixture, stirring occasionally, until it reaches 248ºF on a thermometer, about 12 minutes.
- Once the mixture has reached 248ºF, immediately pour it into the prepared pan and let cool for at least 2 hours.
- Once the caramel has cooled completely, use a sharp knife to cut the block into 40 candies. Store candies in an airtight container until ready to eat.
Kelly's Notes:
- Use a very small amount of oil to grease the parchment paper, otherwise the caramels are coated in the oil and lose their flavor.
- For an added salty kick, top the caramels with additional sea salt after you've poured the hot mixture into the prepared pan. Or, go a step further and coat the hardened caramels in chocolate and garnish with sea salt.
- ★ Did you make this recipe? Don't forget to give it a star rating below!
Nutrition
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Recipe adapted from Gourmet.
Hi, I’ve been dying to try these and haven’t had the time until now. I followed everything to a T and while they look pretty, they did not set at all (I even left them in the pan overnight to set up more). When I went to lift them out of the pan, they just spread out into a goopy mess. Any ideas what could have went wrong? I took it off the stove at 248 deg. Maybe I didn’t let the sugar mixture brown enough before I added the milk mixture to it?? It was a light caramel color when I added it. Help! Thanks!
Hi Tandra! If the caramels are too soft, that means the temperature didn’t get high enough. It could be that your thermometer isn’t reading accurately or that it was touching the bottom of the pan (does your thermometer have a clip for the edge of the pot to hold it up off the bottom?). You can check the accuracy of your thermometer by placing it in boiling water. If it registers 212°F or 100°C, you are good to go. If not, it is time to replace it. I hope this helps!
I was a bit nervous to make these after reading some of the comments, but I followed the recipe to a T and my caramels turned out perfect! I’m so happy with the results that I’m going to make another batch to give as gifts. Thank you!!!!
Awesome! I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe, Kelsey!
hello,
whilst indulging in the wonderful process of creating your “homemade samoas” cookies, we ran into a few issues regarding this caramel recipe. we found the not-stirring aspect of this recipe to be problematic, as the caramel at the top hardened into a pale, pock-marked shell (hehe), and the caramel at the bottom burnt into a mixture with similar color to barbecue sauce. it tasted like the death of our hopes and dreams for the future. disappointed and disillusioned, we poured the caramel into the trash, along with all of our confidence and self-respect. do you have any suggestions to avoid this going forward? aside from this caramel fiasco, we deeply enjoyed your inventive and flawless recipe for the samoas cookies!
I just made about six batches of these as holiday gifts and there are a few things I noticed:
If your candies are coming out pale, it’s because you need to let the sugar/corn syrup/water mixture boil for longer to darken. Maybe it’s just my pot/stovetop combination but it took about 45 minutes for the sugar mixture to get to the golden brown color. I’m not sure how this would only take 20 minutes. The whole process took almost an hour for me!
If you’re making a ton of these, isntead of cutting a bunch of individual squares of waxed paper to wrap them, head to Smart&Final and get a package of patty paper. It’s the waxed paper that they put between frozen hamburger patties and it works just great!
Hi there! So I just finished my second batch of these (The first batch I made I didn’t brown the sugar enough, so while it was good it was very very pale.) and they are so good! and so easy! Thank you for the recipe
Awesome! So glad you enjoyed them :)
Thanks for the response. FYI the glucose syrup worked a treat. Delicious, thanks. I’m planning to use the result in some dark, dense brownies.
Can I substitute glucose syrup for corn syrup? Corn syrup is proving to be difficult to find in australia.
Hello – I don’t have experience cooking with glucose syrup so I can’t say for certainty if you’ll get the exact same result in this recipe if you were using corn syrup.
I am going to make these tonight! !! I cannot wait to try! I’ll let you know how they turn out!!!
Unfortunately no, and thats where I went wrong. Do you have any suggestions on what I can do with my unset caramel?
Hi Atir, I can’t say for certain if reheating the sugar will work, but does it maybe work as a sauce over ice cream? Just an idea :)
Hi, my caramels did not set.
Hi Atir, Were you using a candy thermometer to make sure the sugar reached the correct temp?
Can you use a regular meat thermometer?
Hi Alia! The thermometer has to be able to be submerged in hot liquid (i.e. sugar) and read to the correct temp.
Hey Kelly, I want to have an idea, I have the two kinds of Caramels candy here at home, the Chewy and the Hard one, this Homemade one should be what kind?!
do you stir the caramel after adding cream and cooking to 248?
Hi Sandioh! You have to stir the cream mixture into the sugar mixture before it reaches 248ºF, but after that, no stirring is required.