Candy making appeals to my anal nature. It involves a lot of patience, an ability to read and follow directions exactly, attention to detail, and repetitiveness. My hobbies always tend to involve repetition and activities that others may find boring. And well, my career is all of those things. After my first few forays into candy making, I can't figure out how I didn't try it sooner.
It started with a sugar craving. Vitaliy and I were watching television one night and I really needed something sweet. Problem being that we didn't have anything sweet in the house except for straight sugar. So, onto FoodNetwork I went, and looked for what I could make with sugar as the main ingredient. Ina Garten's recipe for Fluer de Sel Caramels was the first return, if memory serves me.
I had cream left over from making a kind of mac & cheese earlier that week, so I went to work. It was easy to make. I over-cooked the sugar a little bit, and ended up with a caramel that was harder than I would have preferred. The major mistake I made was pouring the caramel onto wax paper that was not greased. I couldn't get the paper off. In the end, the caramels were just too difficult to eat because getting the paper off involved either sucking on the piece of candy until the paper would slide off, or getting a lot of caramel under my fingernails. I ended up trashing most of it. At least it tasted good.
My next attempt came after I ran across a candy blog, the ChocolateGourmand, and I was inspired to try again with Brian's recipe for cream caramels. His classic cream caramel turns out to be essentially the proportions from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich, I would discover later. At this point, I assume it is a basic recipe for making caramels that Medrich put her own spin on (she uses Lyle's Golden Syrup in lieu of corn syrup).
I made a half recipe of the one posted on ChocolateGourmand. I ended up slight burning the sugar as a result of inattentiveness. After the butter and cream were added, I cooked the caramel to 245°f. Sadly, after I turn off the heat, the caramel's temp continued rising. I poured it all into a brownie pan lined with foil that I had greased up. It set up quite hard. To the point that I had to use a serrated knife to cut it up. Also, the candy was fairly bitter tasting. Still edible, and Vitaliy claimed to like it. But the fact is that he didn't eat too much of it. The bright side was that it was a snap to remove the foil.
Monday I decided to try again. I bought more cream at the store, but when I got home, realized I hadn't purchased more corn syrup. I only had about a fifth of a cup left. What to do. Back to FoodNetwork. This time I found Gale Gand's recipe for Butter Caramels. To me, this recipes seems like a purist caramel. No syrup involved. Just sugar, butter, cream, and water. A brave, new world of sugar. My results were not caramel. My sugar crystallized. I could have tossed it all, but I decided instead of dumping 5 cups of sugar, I would just toss in the butter and cream and see what resulted. What resulted is a heavy, pie pan shaped brick of praline, minus the nuts. It tastes caramely and sweet, so it wasn't a total disaster. The brick is still sitting in my kitchen. When I get the time, I'm going to break it up into pieces and let Vitaliy eat it with his tea. Maybe toss some into my next batch of vanilla ice cream. More on that later.
Last night was my latest stab. Back to the basic recipe that includes lots of corn syrup. This time I did a full batch, and this time I pulled a stool up to the stove along with my laptop and did not leave the kitchen too often. Annoyingly, my pot was a little small for this batched, and it boiled over slightly at one point. I still have to clean up the caramel under the stove top. I brought the caramel to 240°f and then turned off the burner. It continue to rise to about 244°f. After setting up for the night, the result was firm but not hard. Good color, taste and texture. I haven't cut it up yet, but I will when I get home tonight. My findings:
So what was going on the sugar-only caramels? Sugar, the white stuff, is sucrose. It is a crystalline substance that will always want to crystallize into to stabilize. (Evidently this can be avoided by not agitating the sugar while it cooks, or allowing foreign substances to enter. I guess I agitated or introduced alien particles). Corn syrup is mainly glucose. Other substances, like the golden syrup in Medrich's recipe is an invert sugar, a sugar that had been chemically alter into glucose and fructose. When the sugar is mixed with another kind of sugar, the other molecules prevent the sucrose from recrystallizing. Apparently one can also achieve this effect by adding an acid to the plain sugar, which will invert the sugar upon heating.
It started with a sugar craving. Vitaliy and I were watching television one night and I really needed something sweet. Problem being that we didn't have anything sweet in the house except for straight sugar. So, onto FoodNetwork I went, and looked for what I could make with sugar as the main ingredient. Ina Garten's recipe for Fluer de Sel Caramels was the first return, if memory serves me.
I had cream left over from making a kind of mac & cheese earlier that week, so I went to work. It was easy to make. I over-cooked the sugar a little bit, and ended up with a caramel that was harder than I would have preferred. The major mistake I made was pouring the caramel onto wax paper that was not greased. I couldn't get the paper off. In the end, the caramels were just too difficult to eat because getting the paper off involved either sucking on the piece of candy until the paper would slide off, or getting a lot of caramel under my fingernails. I ended up trashing most of it. At least it tasted good.
My next attempt came after I ran across a candy blog, the ChocolateGourmand, and I was inspired to try again with Brian's recipe for cream caramels. His classic cream caramel turns out to be essentially the proportions from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich, I would discover later. At this point, I assume it is a basic recipe for making caramels that Medrich put her own spin on (she uses Lyle's Golden Syrup in lieu of corn syrup).
I made a half recipe of the one posted on ChocolateGourmand. I ended up slight burning the sugar as a result of inattentiveness. After the butter and cream were added, I cooked the caramel to 245°f. Sadly, after I turn off the heat, the caramel's temp continued rising. I poured it all into a brownie pan lined with foil that I had greased up. It set up quite hard. To the point that I had to use a serrated knife to cut it up. Also, the candy was fairly bitter tasting. Still edible, and Vitaliy claimed to like it. But the fact is that he didn't eat too much of it. The bright side was that it was a snap to remove the foil.
Monday I decided to try again. I bought more cream at the store, but when I got home, realized I hadn't purchased more corn syrup. I only had about a fifth of a cup left. What to do. Back to FoodNetwork. This time I found Gale Gand's recipe for Butter Caramels. To me, this recipes seems like a purist caramel. No syrup involved. Just sugar, butter, cream, and water. A brave, new world of sugar. My results were not caramel. My sugar crystallized. I could have tossed it all, but I decided instead of dumping 5 cups of sugar, I would just toss in the butter and cream and see what resulted. What resulted is a heavy, pie pan shaped brick of praline, minus the nuts. It tastes caramely and sweet, so it wasn't a total disaster. The brick is still sitting in my kitchen. When I get the time, I'm going to break it up into pieces and let Vitaliy eat it with his tea. Maybe toss some into my next batch of vanilla ice cream. More on that later.
Last night was my latest stab. Back to the basic recipe that includes lots of corn syrup. This time I did a full batch, and this time I pulled a stool up to the stove along with my laptop and did not leave the kitchen too often. Annoyingly, my pot was a little small for this batched, and it boiled over slightly at one point. I still have to clean up the caramel under the stove top. I brought the caramel to 240°f and then turned off the burner. It continue to rise to about 244°f. After setting up for the night, the result was firm but not hard. Good color, taste and texture. I haven't cut it up yet, but I will when I get home tonight. My findings:
- Use corn syrup or an invert sugar.
- Pay close attention.
- Turn off the heat a degree or two before the target temperature.
- Grease everything that is going to come into contact with the finished caramel.
- Use a pot at least twice as large as the volume of sugar & cream.
SCIENCE CORNER
So what was going on the sugar-only caramels? Sugar, the white stuff, is sucrose. It is a crystalline substance that will always want to crystallize into to stabilize. (Evidently this can be avoided by not agitating the sugar while it cooks, or allowing foreign substances to enter. I guess I agitated or introduced alien particles). Corn syrup is mainly glucose. Other substances, like the golden syrup in Medrich's recipe is an invert sugar, a sugar that had been chemically alter into glucose and fructose. When the sugar is mixed with another kind of sugar, the other molecules prevent the sucrose from recrystallizing. Apparently one can also achieve this effect by adding an acid to the plain sugar, which will invert the sugar upon heating.
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