Caramels
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One of the great things about writing THE ULTIMATE CANDY BOOK--perhaps as some sort of redress for the dentist bills--was the drop-jawed kudos. Oh, I don't mean we didn't have failures while we were recipe-testing. Of course. But once a recipe succeeded and we presented some friend with a little bag of wrapped candy, he or she was flummoxed--and that goes for the most squinty-eyed of the hyper-foodie set. You know the type: ever ready with a lecture on how you must eat lettuce pulled out of the ground within the last two hours and rinsed with water at 78F. "You used seventy-seven degree water? What were you thinking?"
Listen, I've got nothing for the current crop of know-nothing idiots pretending to be politicians in DC. I'm certainly not trying to validate ignorance. Just outplay it. And nobody outplays a wannabe fetishist like a more serious one. You can play at leather pants until you meet someone in leather chaps. And you can play at being a foodie until you meet someone who makes candy at home.
So I urge you to outfetish the best of 'em and try these buttery caramels. They're a little harder than the squishy ones available commercially. More old-fashioned. They melt on your tongue, turning soft and luscious. Sticky, too. Make these today and that dental appointment tomorrow.
Here's how: Start by lightly buttering some flexible caramel molds. The indentations are shaped like little lozenges. Not too deep--maybe about a quarter inch or so. Look for them here.
Combine 1 cup heavy cream, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup light corn syrup, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a heavy, medium saucepan. Better a taller pan, if you have one, because the mixture will boil up and can overflow. Stir over medium heat until the sugar has melted. Then add 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons--or 1/2 stick) unsalted butter and stir until melted and fully incorporated, no slick of fat on the surface.
Clip a candy thermometer to the inside of the pan and cook the mixture, without stirring, until the temperature reaches 248F.
How long? Impossible to tell. It depends on 1) how much ambient humidity the sugar has absorbed, 2) its residual water content after its initial processing, 3) the day's humidity, 4) the BTUs your stove puts out, and 5) how much heat your saucepan retains minute by minute. For these and other reasons, I've always wanted to write a cookbook without any timings whatsoever. Haven't yet. I've also wanted to maintain a career.
Let the bubbles calm down just slightly--then while it's still boiling (and this is the really hard part), pour the mixture into the prepared molds, one by one. Here's a trick if you don't have a saucepan with a spout as Bruce does: pour the hot mixture into a large Pyrex measuring cup with a handle and spout, then pour into the molds. (Watch out--even its handle can get ridiculously hot!) Set the molds aside to cool a couple hours, then bend the molds to pop the candies out.
Wrap each candy in a little wax paper square or candy wrapper. Listen, you now needn't fear any fetishist out there. Except the ones in the leather chaps. They still spook me. Maybe it's because I still dream of getting my ample behind into a pair of leather pants. (More caramels, anyone?)
Reader Comments (2)
where are the molds from? Is there a way we can make these without molds? (Limited apartment space! I don't think I can justify another pan or appliance without charts and graphs with documentation and statistics)
There's a direct link inside the entry for the molds on kitchenkrafts.com. I promise: they don't take up much space. We had them in our Manhattan apartment--and believe me, we got them in there somehow. Flexible and easy to store. I promise. Maybe 6 by 4 inches.
(In the candy book, there's a way to do it without molds--but it's ridiculously difficult, I'll admit. And thanks for checking in at the blog!)
Mark