Thursday, December 27, 2012

Sea Salt Caramels

As Christmas time was approaching I began to hear more and more about my friend Annie's famous caramels with sea salt. I love chocolate with sea salt but had never had the caramel with sea salt, so I asked Annie if she would come over and make her recipe with me. She said yes! Our friend Aubra offered to come help also (but I think she just wanted in on the caramel lesson too) and so we made of night of it, I made margaritas, we ordered in pizza and we got our caramel making on!

I have always been intimidated with cooking sugar, it sometimes seems more like a science project than  standard cooking. Annie was great with going step by step to make sure we learned the process and made the best caramels ever! Since the night we made them I have now made this recipe 4 times and they have come out great everytime. I'm looking forward to maybe trying a batch with toffee, or incorporating chocolate somehow. There are endless possibilities!

Lets get started...

Line a baking dish with parchment paper then lightly oil the parchment paper. Lightly oiling the paper just helps the caramel remove itself easier once its cooled.
                                
                                


Then bring the cream, butter and sea salt to a boil in a small saucepan. Once this is boiled evenly and stirred well, set aside.






Then boil sugar, corn syrup and water in a large saucepan. Stirring the mixture occasionally until sugar is fully dissolved.




This next step I think is the most important. Once all the sugar is dissolved you'll want to swirl the mixture while you wait for it to turn a light golden caramel color. Me and the girls took turns swirling, this step takes about 8-10 minutes. We were armed with oven mitts so that we were ready to swirl when it was our turn. 

         





 Aubra was especially taken with the sugar changing colors.




Once you think you couldn't stand to swirl anymore and the sugar is a nice caramel color then its time to add your cream mixture.



Pour in all of the cream mixture into your sugar and stir well. If you are nervous because it boils up "violently", don't worry, thats normal. 






Stir well and add your candy thermometer to your pan. Let the mixture simmer until the thermometer reads 248 degrees. 






Once your mixture reaches 248 degrees then it is time to pour it into your lined baking dish. 



Then sprinkle the top with sea salt. Once you have got as much sea salt as you want on your caramels add it to the fridge for a couple of hours until it is cool enough to cut. 



Here we are posed with our caramel mixture. We were pretty excited with what we created. 



Here is the batch of caramel cut up into squares, then another photo of them wrapped up. 



They really are completely delicious. The flavor is so creamy and sweet and with the salt sprinkled on top it balances out the sweetness and brings the flavor around full circle. I made some caramel to take with me to see my family in Illinois and I don't think they even lasted 24 hours. They were a hit! A special thanks to Annie for teaching me how to make these caramels. She made them foolproof without sacrificing any quality. If you'd like to try these on your own I have attached a 4x6 recipe card for you. 







1 comment:

  1. I enjoy your posts, Jenna. You are so creative!

    Love,
    Mom

    ReplyDelete