Creamy caramels

Creamy caramels

2/3 of the way through a series about going organic, and I’ve got a hankering for caramels. I’ll finish the organic thing later, I promise!

There are still days when I miss my lollies, and this week I’ve been really feeling it. I’ve been friends with them for so many years. I no longer crave them, but every now and then I have just a little sigh and a little wish for a sweet treat. And chocolate is all well and good, but some days you just need CANDY.

I’ve done a few experiments with glucose-based jelly lollies and hard boiled lollies, but I’m not happy with the outcome (I’ll post a recipe if I ever get them right). But the other day I wanted caramels, and nothing else, so I set out to see if they could be made without fructose. I found a recipe online here and decided to mold it to my fructose-free will. Mwa ha ha!

This recipe makes these soft, buttery caramels. 

Delicious for a sweet treat, and just what I was after J You will need a candy thermometer. Mine was about $6 from House (or was it Home?).

Here are the ingredients:

·         1 cup glucose syrup

·         1/4  cup water

·         1 cups dextrose powder

·         1 cup double cream

·         1/4 cup evaporated milk

·         1/4 cup softened butter, cut into small cubes

Line a pan with alfoil and spray the foil with oil/ cooking spray. This is VERY important unless you want to be picking foil out of your teeth later J

In a medium saucepan, heat the glucose syrup, water and dextrose. Just a tip for measuring out the glucose syrup which is so thick that it seems more like a solid than a liquid (at least when you are trying to get it from jar to measuring cup and from cup to pan!). Put the jar in a saucepan or bowl filled with hot water and leave it for a little bit. The syrup gets runnier as it heats slightly – which makes it much easier to pour out. Believe me, you will thank me for this step.

So, once the syrup, dextrose and water are in a saucepan and heating away, stir them until sugar dissolves (mine still looked a bit cloudy but wasn’t getting any clearer so I just let it go to the next stage: ). Allow the mixture to come to the boil, reduce the heat so that it is bubbling away by itself and insert the candy thermometer. Let the mixture boil until the candy thermometer shows 120 C (250 F).

While this is happening, you need to prepare the cream and evaporated milk by heating them in a separate saucepan- they need to be warm, but don’t let them boil. Have your butter ready as well.

When the sugar mixture hits 120C, it’s time to tip in the heated cream/evaporated milk mixture and the butter. The temperature will decrease- relax, this is normal.

Pull up a chair because you need to stir constantly from now on. Keep the candy thermometer in the mixture and keep stirring (while it bubbles away) until the thermometer hits 118 C (245 F). The recipe actually said 244, but let’s not split hairs here. It should be a lovely golden caramelly colour. If you want a firmer, chewier caramel, cook the candy until the temperature comes up to 120-125C. 

Pour into your prepared pan. Don’t scrape it from the bottom of the saucepan (no idea why not, the recipe says so).

Now the hard part. Leave the caramel alone. Overnight. Don’t worry, there is probably some left in the pan that you can scrape out and taste. If you are like me, you’ll probably get impatient and try and cut it early, but it really does need ages to set at room temperature and it apparently gets a smoother, silkier texture if left to cool and set at room temperature rather than in the fridge.

To cut it, tip it face down onto some baking paper, peel the foil away from the bottom (unless you are like me and didn’t grease the foil enough, in which case cut the foil away), and then cut into whatever size pieces you like using a greased knife.

If you cooked to 118C, your caramels will be very soft and you need to wrap them to keep their shape. They look very cute when wrapped (I just used baking paper in two stages- see below).

Wrap a strip as wide as the caramel around it once. Then place on a rectangle piece, wrap around, and twist the ends:

Voila!

But if you plan to eat them straight away, don’t care about shape, or you made them firmer, you don’t need to worry about this step (which I will admit is a tad fiddly)- just store them in an airtight container. The recipe says they will be good for two weeks, but I’ll have to get back to you on that one. I found with previous glucose candy experiments that it doesn’t last as well as sugar candy.

My only other comment is that if you are making this for yourself, you might want to halve the recipe. There is no way I would want to eat this much caramel in two weeks by myself, as delicious as it is.

Enjoy!