Soft Caramels

[scott123]

I made soft caramels today using this recipe:

http://www.baking911recipes.com/candy_caramels.htm

I noticed that they were not all that deeply colored or flavored.

That just happened to be the first recipe I stumbled on. After that, I started looking around for other recipes and noticed that they all cooked the sugar syrup first until color is achieved (300ish) and then added the cream/butter for a second phase (248).

In the single phase caramel, if you don't caramelize the sugar syrup first, the only thing that's browning when the cream/butter is added is the cream, correct? 248 isn't a high enough temp to color a sugar syrup.

How common are these single phase caramels? Is this recipe an adulteration for soft caramel connoisseurs?

[chiantiglace]

I have never seen a recipe like this, i would just disregard it all together. The only thing i can think of why this could be interesting is if you were wanting to dye the caramels a different color than brown. But then it wouldn't have good flavor.

To do caramels right as you asked, you must first bring the sugar to caramel stage and then add your cream and butter. Then once again apply heat until temp reaches 240-250 degrees depending on how stiff you want it.

Try Pierre Herme's Chocolate caramels sometime, they are wonderful. After doing these a year or so ago I have done countless experiments with different flavors.

[Wendy DeBord]

Hum, Bruce Weinsteins recipes are usually reliable. I'm personally not familar with this recipe either. The temp. sited is off, 248f isn't going to caramelize anything.

My toffee recipe is somewhat like this, in that your cooking all your ingredients together up to caramel. With my toffee recipe I cook it until it's the darkness/carmelization I want.............temp. becomes irrelavent...........one step too far, too hot and it's burnt/garbage.

His recipe could be just fine, but the temp. is wrong. The softness of your caramel is going to depend upon how much liquid cream and butter you have to your sugar............not necessarily how you cooked them. Again, you can't get caramelization at 248F.

[chiantiglace]

toffee and soft caramel are two different things, i think he accidently combined instructions for 2 different recipe's. oops.

You are going to get that soft gooey caramel texture only by adding the liquid ingredients after caramel stage. By making toffee you can only make it so soft, i do beleive, or wendy have you actually made a toffee that is somewhat pliable and room temp? I haven't.

[Wendy DeBord]

I'm pretty much guessing. I not so sure you couldn't make caramels the way Weinstein is suggesting. I haven't, no.

And quite frankly, I too would look for a better recipe Scott. I was just thinking about where Weinstein could have been coming from.

[scott123]

Thanks everyone for your replies!

Wendy, Weinstein's recipe results in almost a carbon copy of a Kraft soft caramel only just a tad firmer. The sugar doesn't undergo any caramelization, but the cream will 'brown' and make a Kraft colored/tasting caramel - for those that are into that kind of thing.

I will go with the another recipe, thanks!

[ruthcooks]

Making soft caramels was my final exam test recipe in my major foods course in college! Since cream does not caramelize as fast as milk, this recipe added the cream in three portions, after each one raising the temperature to the final desired degree. Much easier than fooling with adding cream to hot caramel syrup, IMO.

Result? Caramels were perfect and written exam good. I got an A and an offer of a full scholarship in Foods and Nutrition. Didn't take it because chemistry was the bane of my collegiate world.

I've been thinking about making my grandson those caramels before he gets his braces on in two weeks.

[chiantiglace]

I find caramelizing the sugar first much easier, it's harder to go wrong in that instance and has a much better flavor as far as im concerned.

[chocophile]

Making soft caramels was my final exam test recipe in my major foods course in college!  Since cream does not caramelize as fast as milk, this recipe added the cream in three portions, after each one raising the temperature to the final desired degree.  Much easier than fooling with adding cream to hot caramel syrup, IMO.

Result?  Caramels were perfect and written exam good.  I got an A and an offer of a full scholarship in Foods and Nutrition.

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Ruth, would you be willing to share ingredients list, proportions, and temperature for each stage? This is something I'd like to try and I am sort of hoping that this could turn into the caramel equivalent of the marshmallow thread (or would love a link to such a thread if it already exists, thanks).

:Clay

[ruthcooks]

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[ruthcooks]

Forgot to add: stir, stir, stir. These need to be stirred almost constantly and for about 1 1/2 hours.

Made them today and my grandsons are swooning. A 9" bread pan is the right size for this small batch. On second thought, it's not so small. Makes about 40 when cut into squares the dimension of Kraft caramels, which will never satisfy you again once you taste these.

[Samaki]

I've seen soft caramel recipes that only go to one temperature, like the original one posted, and made them many times. They do, in fact succeed in making decent soft caramels. I've abandoned them for the two temperature method, though, for two reasons: (1) the flavor is better when you caramelize the sugars and not just the cream, and (2) the resulting caramels are much more stable, i.e. resistant to unwanted crystalization.