Salted Caramels

I have to be careful what I sign up for. But, when I sign up for something, I will give it my all.  This is one example of that.  Knowing I like to bake and cook, a fellow parent at school asks if I would like to make something homemade for the teachers (ALL the teachers and faculty in the school).  I later found out that this was 55 people. So, I thought little caramels would be easy.  Make the caramels, pour them in a pan and cut them up. Easy, right?  Well, the "Easy Salted Caramels" recipe that I sourced from Pinterest seemed so, but the overall process to create enough to make cute little baggies of 5 caramels for each faculty member was more arduous than I thought.  Luckily, I had the help of my cousin staying with us and my amazing husband. 

We made over 300 of these sweet little caramels.  The recipe below is for one batch, but we made 4-6 batches total. 

Here is the water and corn syrup boiling. 

Then we added the butter and heavy cream and continued cooking. 

Once our caramel reached about 245 degrees, we poured it out onto a baking sheet covered with parchment. We left some edges to the parchment and it easily came off the baking sheet to be able to cut.  We placed it on a measure sheet and cut them into (almost) equally sized pieces.  The tough part was just keeping it from sticking to the parchment.  

Because we were packaging them for gifts, we cut several pieces of waxed paper and wrapped the caramels individually, which took some time, but looked very nice. We packaged five or more in cellophane bags to give as gifts. The teachers loved them and we also enjoyed a few ourselves :-)

Recipe for Salted Caramels

From Inspired Taste (Adapted from Jacques Pepin)

Yields 35-40 caramels

Ingredients:

1/2 C. unsalted butter (1 stick)

1/2 C. heavy cream

3 T. water

1/2 C. light corn syrup

1 C. granulated sugar

1/2 t. flaked sea salt (I used Maldon)

Directions:

Lightly oil a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan then measure and cut a piece of parchment paper that will fit inside the pan and come up the sides by at least 1 inch. Next, lightly oil the parchment paper and place into the pan. Set the pan aside.

Cut butter into 8 pieces then combine with heavy cream in a small microwave-safe bowl. Heat in the microwave for 1 to 2 minutes until hot and butter has melted. Set aside, we will use this later. I don't have a microwave, so we melted the butter in the heavy cream on the stove.

1. In a small saucepan combine the water and corn syrup. Then, add the sugar, but try your best not to splatter the sugar up the sides of the pan. Now, use a spoon to gently stir the sugar into the water and corn syrup, just moistening the sugar.
2. Heat over medium heat until the sugar has come to a boil. Then, cover with a lid for 1 minute. This adds steam/moisture to the pan, so any sugar that may have stuck to the sides of the pan melts and falls back into the boiling sugar.
3. Remove lid then attach a candy thermometer to the side of the saucepan. Then, cook sugar for 5 to 10 minutes, until the sugar reaches a temperature of 320 degrees F (160 degrees C). At this temperature, the sugar will take on a light amber color around the edges of the pan.

1. he moment the sugar reaches 320 degrees F (160 degrees C), carefully pour about a sixth of the butter and cream mixture then stir, using the base of the candy thermometer to incorporate it. Repeat with the remaining cream and butter (adding a sixth of it at a time then stirring). The sugar will bubble violently as you add the butter and cream - so do this carefully and slowly to prevent the mixture from bubbling over the sides of the saucepan.
2. By adding the cream and butter, the temperature will drop. Now, continue cooking for another 5 to 10 minutes, until the caramel reaches a temperature of 240 degrees F (115 degrees C). This will create a soft caramel, if you want slightly harder caramels, bring the temperature closer to 245 degrees F (118 degrees C).

1. The moment the caramel reaches your desired temperature, pour into the prepared loaf pan. Cool 20 to 30 minutes then scatter the salt over the caramel. Then, let the caramel cool 3 1/2 hours.
2. Unmold the caramel. If the caramel is too soft to work with, place into the refrigerator 30 to 45 minutes to firm up. Then, use a large sharp knife to cut into your desired shape. You may want to run the knife under hot water periodically to be able to cut the caramel easily. We like to cut into 1-inch by 1/2-inch rectangles.

1. Wrap caramels in plastic wrap or waxed paper and enjoy immediately, or you can refrigerate or freeze for enjoying later.

Caramel Apple Cookie Pops

I've made this caramel apple cookie recipe before and just made the regular cookies. I took them to the neighborhood Halloween party last year and they got rave reviews.  While I knew it was an amazing recipe, I wanted to do something different this time around, especially since I was planning to take them to the same party again this year. Since they are inspired by caramel apples, I thought...why not add sticks to them like caramel apples?  Plus, it would make it fun for people to eat at the party. I haven't made cookie pops before, but I knew it was a nice thick cake-like batter that would probably work.  They are yummy too!  They're made with fresh shredded apple and with the caramel icing, they taste just like the real caramel apples.  Except they're better...and not as messy!

I made the dough, put scoops on the Silpat, placed the lollipop stick through the center and flattened each cookie scoop with the back of a spoon to get more of a round shape and set it into the stick.

I let them cool on a pan a little after baking and carefully transferred them with a spatula to some parchment paper to cool and set.

The caramel apple icing was carefully applied so as to not pull on the stick too much and voila!....caramel apple cookie pops! The original recipe called for adding nuts like the apples I have here, but I was taking them where there would be lots of kids so I thought I better not chance it with possible allergies. They were a hit again and gone before I left the party early!

My sister and her family came to the party with us and she made these yummy and adorable spice sandwich cookies with homemade jack-o-lantern faces.  We used some cream cheese frosting that we colored orange to put in between and also used some of the leftover caramel apple icing for some. 

She even made some pretty oak leaves.  The pumpkin faces were the best to see the icing through and it oozed out through the eyes when you took a bite! :)

  

Recipe for Caramel Apple Cookie Pops

 (Adapted from a recipe for Caramel Apple Cookies in Midwest Living Magazine) 

Ingredients:

Cookie dough:

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 t. pumpkin or apple pie spice
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup apple juice
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 large tart apple (peeled, cored and coarsely shredded)

Icing:

• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 3 Tbs. unsalted butter
• 3 Tbs. apple juice
• 2 2/3 cups powdered sugar

Chopped nuts (optional)

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, beat 1/2 cup butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds.  Add 1 1/4 cups brown sugar, baking soda, pie spice, and salt. Beat until well-combined, scraping sides of bowl. Beat in egg until well-combined. Add 1/2 cup apple juice; beat on low speed until combined (don't worry if mixture looks a little curdled). Beat in the flours and fold in the shredded apple.

Drop dough by slightly rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart onto a greased or Silpat lined cookie sheet. Be careful not to make them too big if you're making cookie pops so they won't fall off the sticks if they're too heavy.  If you are doing pops, stagger the scoops on the cookie sheet and place the sticks into the center of the rounded teaspoon.  Run a spoon under warm water and flatten each of the cookie scoops slightly with the back of the spoon.  Bake at 350 degrees about 10-12 minutes or until tops and edges are browned.  Let stand for a few minutes to cool and transfer carefully to parchment paper or wire racks for icing.

For icing: In a small saucepan, heat and stir 1/2 cup brown sugar, butter and apple juice over medium heat until all the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and whisk in the powdered sugar.  If it is too thick, you can add a touch more juice or if it's too runny add a little more powdered sugar.  If you let it sit too long, it will thicken and you may need to add some juice to get it back to spreading consistency.  Spread carefully on top of cookies and sprinkle with chopped nuts, if desired.

Birthday Souffle

When I recently visited a friend for her birthday, I wanted to make her a special treat. I simply asked her what her favorite flavor is. She mentioned caramel and I recalled a recent Martha Stewart show where they made caramel souffle that looked amazing. So, we went to pick up the ingredients and one kids nap time and part of an evening later, we had gorgeous and perfectly risen caramel souffle's to celebrate her birthday.

The first step was to coat the souffle dishes with butter and turbinado sugar. We used the raw Maui sugar that you can get at any grocery store. It's so pretty and we hadn't even put the souffle in the dishes yet!

For the souffle batter you had to first make the actual caramel. I have not done this before and I was a little scared to cook sugar with nothing else in a hot pan, but it indeed cooked down and I just folded it in after it started to brown until it was all dissolved.

After the sugar was completely dissolved and caramelized, we added heavy cream and whole milk and ended up with this creamy caramel sauce. It smelled SO good!

Then, you mixed the egg yolks and sugar together and added a little flour and cornstarch until it was thicker. This was added to the hot caramel sauce to temper it slowly and then completely incorporated.

The caramel sauce and egg yolk mixture was cooked on the stove top again until it was nice and thick like the consistency of homemade pudding.

We left the cooked caramel "pudding" and the egg whites out to get to room temperature and took a dinner break. When we returned to making our dessert, we whipped the egg whites and added more sugar to make a meringue to create the airiness in the souffle. This is where I knew it would be tricky like the macarons I made last week as I didn't want to over mix the batter. I folded all the meringue into the caramel "pudding" and tried to make sure it was a smooth as possible without over beating. In fact, I probably could have mixed it in a little more.

The souffle dishes were filled almost to the top and we put them in the microwave for a few seconds as recommended to set the top of the batter so it would rise better.

I put the light on in the oven several times and we were SO excited to see they were rising!

We just had the caramel souffles on their own which was fantastic, but we were going to whip the remaining heavy whipping cream to have on the side. Martha's guest made caramel ice cream to have on the side, which would be interesting to try. We enjoyed some sweet Moscato wine that evening though and switched to some cold milk to have with our souffle as they were quite rich.

And, while a hot souffle isn't particularly easy to hold a candle, we put one in for the birthday girl.