Flavoring caramels and making large batches

[abc123]

Hello Everyone!

I have been making caramels for fun for the past year. I am wondering if anyone knows of ways to flavor caramels other than with extracts or alcohols? I'm always tempted to try fruit or spices, but I'm afraid the bits will burn at such high temps.

 

The other idea I've had is to make flavored invert sugar, lavendar, cardamon..etc.

 

Also, does anyone have large batch recipes? Everything I have read about doubling recipes does not seem to be clear as to the outcome.

 

Any ideas?

Thanks so much

[Mjx]

There are lots of options for flavouring caramels, and lots of discussions of this in the forums, including Variations on Caramel, Caramels with habanero, Creating Ginger Caramels, to name a just a few.

 

There's some discussion of doubling recipes in the Caramel Troubleshooting discussion. I've doubled a caramel recipe only once, and the only difference I noticed was that it took a lot longer to get the sugar to temperature; the results were the same (I could swear I've read that the amount of liquid used should be somewhat reduced, but I cannot remeber where, and didn't do this).

[pastrygirl]

How large is large? I usually make a 9" square and get 90 pieces.

I've used honey, glucose syrup, cane syrup, and golden syrup, all adding their own flavors. I've infused citrus zest and spices into the cream then strained them out. It depends on how you make your caramels, but it seems like as long as spices are not being cooked past 250-260F they shouldn't burn.

[abc123]

Mjx and pastrygirl, thank you so much for your help. I feel silly that I somehow missed those earlier posts.

I make caramels the 2 step way, adding the butter and cream after making the sugar syrup. I also make my own invert sugar for glucose. I've just often had ideas for flavoring caramels and could never find the fundamental rules for it. This is helpful to know about infusing the cream, or someone said they used concentrated juice instead of water. I have also made drink syrups, and wondered if I could use those instead of the glucose...just so many variables to consider when changing the recipe.

 

As for large batches, the bigger the better. I don't go above 250F, so that is good to know!

I'm figuring out a way to streamline the process for selling them locally and making as many as possible. Thanks for your ideas!