Salted Caramels

For a while I couldn’t understand why people put salt on sweets. I was confident that dessert was meant to be sweet, and salt would just ruin the luxurious, tooth-decaying experience.

Homemade salted caramels. Make your own--click to get the recipe!

I was wrong. Salt is able to offset the sweetness of desserts while also giving them a kick. Salt can really turn up the flavour. In fact, salt can actually help make your teeth decay faster! Salt really does make sweet desserts better. Especially desserts made almost completely our of sugar, like caramel.

Caramel by itself is too sweet, and so a sprinkling of sea salt makes the candies more palatable. I highly recommend sprinkling them with some coarse salt.

Homemade buttery caramels sprinkled with coarse sea salt. Click for the recipe!

Remember a few weeks ago when my caramel layer in my homemade Mars bars failed because my thermometer was poorly calibrated? Well, I fixed that. These came out perfectly.

Homemade caramels sprinkled with sea salt. Click for the recipe!

Sorry for the super short post and not posting last week. I’m busy studying for my final exams. These are super important because I’m applying to university with the marks. I’ll likely not be posting next week either.

Salted Caramels
 
Homemade buttery caramels sprinkled with coarse sea salt. Slightly adapted from Epicurious.
Ingredients
For the caramels:
  • 1 cup (250ml) whipping cream
  • 4 tablespoons (60g) unsalted butter
  • 1 teaspoon coarse salt
  • 1½ cups (300g) sugar
  • ¼ cup (85g) light corn syrup
  • ¼ cup (62ml) water
For sprinkling on top:
  • 1 teaspoon coarse salt
Method
Prepare the caramels:
  1. Line an 8 by 8 inch square pan with parchment paper. Bring the cream, butter, and salt to a boil in a small saucepan and then set aside. Boil the sugar, corn syrup, and water together in a large saucepan, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. Boil while swirling the pan (do not mix, just swirl). Add in the cream mixture (careful, it will bubble) and simmer, stirring frequently, until the caramel reaches 248°F, about 10 to 15 minutes. Pour into the baking pan and cool for four minutes. Sprinkle the salt on top, and let cool for at least two hours or overnight. Remove the parchment paper and cut the caramels into and size you wish. You can wrap them in wax paper or just keep them in a box.

 


12 thoughts on “Salted Caramels

  1. I also never thought salt on desserts were a great idea, although my parents always sprinkled a little salt on watermelon and it always tasted better that way! I love salted caramels and Lindt has a really great salted chocolate bar too! I can’t wait to try yours!

    Good luck with exams!!!

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