Monday, March 26, 2012

40.

I hope everyone enjoyed Rebecca's guest post on Friday...I got caught up with family stuff while my mother-in-law was in town. And tomorrow is Chris' birthday...and I should probably but on my awesome wife pants and bake the man a carrot cake [ick, I know but it's his favorite]...but I'm having a slow start today, so I'm not having a whole lot of motivation right now to venture out of my house...but maybe it'll pick up.
ANYWAYS, over the weekend, for some stupid stupid reason I wanted to try to make caramels...again. Another fail [by now you'd think I would be a pro, right?] But they randomly turn into something pretty awesome. Well if you like werther's originals. Which I very much do.
Caramel Hard Candy

[edit: I've gotten quite a few emails asking why there is kosher salt in the picture...well because I was originally going to make salted caramels, and last minute Chris asked if I would leave out the salt...and I just forgot that it was in the picture, sorry for any confusion]
What you need:
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/4 cup light corn syrup
- 1/4 cup water

First, line an 8x8 pan with parchment paper, and grease it...I'm pretty terrible at making the parchment paper fitting in there nicely...so I did my best.
Bring the cream and butter to a boil in a small saucepan; remove from heat and set aside.
Boil the sugar, corn syrup, and water in a heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Bring to a boil, without stirring but gently swirling pan; then cook without stirring until the mixture reaches 248°F, the firm-ball stage. Carefully stir in the cream mixture—the mixture will bubble up.
 Simmer, stirring frequently, about 15 minutes. Letting the temperature rise to about 300°F. Then pour mixture into your 8x8 pan, and put in the fridge until it's cool [mine took about 30 minutes]
Next, use a hammer and smash it into small pieces. 
Wrap the pieces in wax paper. 
If you want your caramels to look more uniform, instead of using the 8x8 pan you can use hard candy molds...or you could even make lollipops. 









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