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Jim D.

Well, it happened again.  I made Wybauw's caramelized pineapple.  All was well, but as it cooled, the fat from the cream (I assume) formed a pool in the pan (no butter had been added at this point).  I have made this recipe 3-4 times without incident.  With an immersion blender I added the butter and some additional pineapple.  Again all looked well, but I came back later to find it separated once more.  In desperation (what did I have to lose?) I put the solid part of the caramel in the food processor.  I added the fat little by little; it mixed in a bit but not enough.  I then added skim milk (the trick I have used for fixing ganache) and processed some more.  A very nice caramel formed--and stayed formed.  The problem, however, was that the skim milk had made the caramel too loose.  At that point I was afraid of heating it again (which would have been the obvious thing to do), so added some cocoa butter (from the Eztemper machine).  It thickened enough to give me some hope, but it was very soft.  I put a little in the freezer to see what would happen, and it did get reasonably thick.  So I went ahead and piped the stuff into shells.  I will probably refrigerate it for a while to see if that helps.  The only consolation is that the caramel tastes delicious, but overall not a happy day in the caramel factory.