Salted Butter Caramels

Let's start by getting a little something out of the way.

I'm rarely afraid to mix foods, for texture and flavor and general wonder.

That being said - eating hot wings and oatmeal (plain, of course) for breakfast is not actually bad.  Not together mind you but wings first, then oatmeal... not awful. 

So, it's a natural progression that I don't mind chiles in my chocolate or some sea salt in my Caramels.

I only tried sea salt caramels for the first time in the last year or so.  I bought a small bag of them from EuroPan in Pasadena and if I remember correctly they were about $1 per piece if you wanted to break it down.  Then just recently on HauteLook or Ideeli or Fab - one of those member only flash-sale sites I saw a candy maker selling them for over $1 a piece ON SALE.

That's insane.

So, I was on a mission to find a great recipe for them that I could make myself.

One so happened to be lingering on one of my favorite food blogs, Chez Pim.

 All in all, I think my batch comes out to be $10 for a batch of 40-50.

We had tons of trouble wrapping them once they were done.  I only have parchment paper that it seems isn't built for candy wrapping - thus we resorted to festive plastic wrap and left them in squares. 

Regardless of the wrapping there is little left to be desired from this recipe.

Pim has a modification on the typical recipe - which was a (glorious and genius) mistake.  All the great things come from experimentation and error, it seems.

Salted Butter Caramels - Chez Pim

The website appears to be down currently.


So I'm copy/pasting the recipe and I'll give you a rundown of the steps.

Salted butter and honey caramels

1 cup (2.5dl) heavy cream
1.5 cups or 300g sugar
1/2 cup (2.5dl) very dark, intense honey, if all you have is milder honey I’d use one cup of honey to one cup of sugar
4oz or 110g salted butter, room temperature
more salt to taste

Melt sugar and honey together - caramelize.  You can shake the pot but don't stir.

While the honey and sugar are caramelizing.  Heat the cream to a simmer.

Cut the room temp butter into smallish pieces, these are about 1/2 to 3/4 inch cubes.

When the sugar reaches a deep brown color, whisk in the butter until it's completely incorporated.

Add the cream slowly and whisk until smooth.  At this point you add the additional salt to taste. 

Per the start of this post I'm kind of a flavor fiend so I really wanted the honey/butter flavors to be balanced with a lingering saltiness.  It ended at a perfect amount that has to remain undisclosed because I just can't remember how much was added.  It's definitely a personal preference thing. 

My idea of flawless is when you taste the caramel and have to take a moment to place the deep rich unmistakeable Chestnut honey undertone in the midst of the butter/sugar flavor.  Then after a second or so the salt starts to creep up on the sides of your tongue slowly.  Like I said, utter perfection.

Boil and let the mixture reach 260F.   Pour it out into a cookie sheet that's lined with Parchment paper.  We tried to use a silicone baking liner and discovered later on that it sticks awfully if you don't allow it to cool completely.

I don't have any photos of the wrapped ones.  Unfortunately Christina and I got too excited to take anymore pictures after this point.

Oh and Pim says to use a very dark honey.  She mentions a Chestnut honey she was given and I found one and added it to my Amazon wishlist.  It arrived on my doorstep, all brown-paper-package-tied-up-with-string, courtesy of Jason for Christmas.  (Thank you!)  Unfortunately I failed to Fed Ex any caramels to him.  Next batch, I promise.

Chestnut honey.  This recipe used maybe a third of the jar.  I'd bet on just two batches to be safe.  I haven't tried the recipe with a typical Clover honey like you typically find in the market.  Chances are I probably won't after tasting them with this.

So that was the adventure of caramel making.  The great thing about these is that I babysat my friend's daughter who is 8 and darling, but also a candy vacuum - and she hated them!  So you can make them and they won't be instantly inhaled by children that happen to scrounge for sugar.

Hurrah!