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Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Grandma’s Caramels
When I was 16 years old my grandmother gave me the recipe (I’d been begging for it since I was twelve) along with a candy thermometer (which I broke some years later after my third move). They’re not easy to make. The ingredients and technique is simple, but it’s time consuming. It also helps for it to be a dry day. Humidity is the enemy of caramels. Grandma’s Caramels The sugar and corn syrup are boiled over medium high heat until they become clear. Stir constantly but not vigorously, scraping down the sides to incorporate any sugar crystals.You shouldn’t be able to see any undissolved sugar crystals. Make sure your pot is heavy and sturdy. Then add, bit by bit, small pieces of the butter and little tips of the milk. If the mixture boils up a lot when you’ve added it, you’ve added it too quickly. Keep stirring and adding. This process can take at least five minutes. Once they’re added in, add the candy thermometer and stir constantly until the mixture reaches soft ball stage (235 F). Be sure to move the candy thermometer to mix behind it or else you’ll be little burned bits. Once at soft ball, turn off the heat and add nuts. Pour out into either a greased large pan (9 x 14) or onto a piece of buttered marble. (Parchment works well, too.) Allow to cool completely (overnight), then cut into small bites and wrap in waxed paper. Cellophane is okay, but tends to stick more (but is obviously prettier). You can put a little sprinkle of artisan salt on them if you like.
Now, this year was the first time I’ve made the caramels in about four years. The vexing part was that I didn’t want to use Karo because it contains high fructose corn sweetener. So I went on the hunt of some sort of real corn syrup. I finally found it at Whole Foods, but instead of coming in a 16 ounce bottle (the amount I needed) it came in an 11.5 ounce bottle. And it was the last one. So I bought the closest thing I could find to a corn syrup, which was a rice syrup. This happened to be brown rice syrup. Now, looking back at this, it may not have been a good idea. Corn syrup is made of glucose, primarily. Rice syrup is maltose and a little glucose. So it has a different flavor profile and likely a different chemical behavior when boiled. Glucose is a monosaccharide and maltose is a disaccharide. In addition, my mother was helping me out and reflexively picked up skimmed evaporated milk instead of the whole variety. We decided to use it anyway, instead of going back into the store. (Nothin’ more fun than a grocery store on the weekend before Christmas, eh?) So, here’s the new recipe and outcome:
The rest goes as above as well, just added the butter and milk. The color, however, was darker and smelled more malty than buttery during the whole process. I was a little nervous that it wasn’t going to caramelize properly because of the different sugar balance and lack of milk fats from the evaporated milk, so I went slightly over the soft ball stage because the water drop test seemed a little soft. (You take a spoon of caramel and drop it into a glass of cold water and then pull it out and feel the texture.) The color is much darker, but the flavor is absolutely wonderful. I don’t miss the slightly less fat in it (it probably has less water when it boils so long, so the concentration of fat is probably similar). I’m not at all scared to use the brown rice syrup again, but I’ll probably still keep it at a half & half balance instead of completely replacing the corn syrup. But I’m leaning towards using the full fat evaporated milk (do not use sweetened condensed milk, that’s way too much sugar). Of course one of the big sticking points to this is that Karo is super-cheap at about $2.75 to $3 a bottle. However, that organic, non-gmo brown rice syrup cost a whopping $5.39 for 16 ounces and the diminutive organic corn syrup was $4.99 for 11.5 ounces. There’s nothing quite like homemade caramels, and if you’ve never had them or have been paying silly high prices for them at candy shops, it might be time to make your own. You can also vary the recipe by adding flavors at the same time as the nuts. Perhaps some spicy hot? Maybe a little chai spice? How about a touch of matcha? Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:45 am
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Comment by
Judee on 12/26/07 at 5:44 am #
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va home loans on 4/09/09 at 11:06 am #
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.what was the total estimated time it took you to make it?
I had a rather similar experience this Christmas as well. I too was wary about the high fructose corn syrup so opted for the Whole Foods natural kind as well. I got the organic jar and used it to make sponge candy. Instead of light airy squares I got a dense heavy candy block that broke teeth. I turned to my local Korean supermarket that has quite a large selection of different types of corn syrup that isn’t available at my regular grocery store. The light corn syrup I got is distributed by CJ Food and the English ingredients say: WATER, CORNSTARCH. I’m not sure how accurate that is though. It is much clearer in appearance where Karo has that light tinge to it. Their viscosities were similar though the Korean brand seemed just a tiny bit thicker. I don’t really remember the price, but I’m sure it competed well with Karo since this market (H-Mart) usually has extremely low prices. The Korean corn syrup worked very well in various recipes I used it in. I know Light is going to be diffrent from Dark but its what I needed at the time. I know that Hmart has similar Dark cornsyrups as well.
Judee, I don’t know about Cybele’s Grandma’s recipe, but the recipe I use to make caramels takes about 45 minutes (or so I have noted in the cookbook, I didn’t re-time it this past weekend when I made them).
We used a “health food store” brand of corn syrup in pecan pie at Thanksgiving. My husband said the corn syrup tasted like liquid candy corn. My two eldest boys loved the pecan pie. We used the same recipe with Karo at my mom’s house over Christmas (it’s her recipe, after all!), and they said the pie was too sweet!
p.s. Thanks for sharing your grandma’s recipe! If I live that long, maybe I’ll be the grandma who makes caramels for her descendants :^)
I think this is the recipe my grandmother tried last christmas, but it didn’t turn out that great, do you think it could be related to the fact we are at sea level?
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