Caramel.....just...caramel

[Matthew.Taylor]

Well, I purchased a book of Amazon recently that contained an interesting recipe for Salted Caramel (Patisserie: Mastering the Fundamentals of French Pastry - Updated Edition: Felder, Christophe: 8601200395532: Amazon.com: Books). My mother had spoken once about how much she liked this stuff, and I had nothing planned for this weekend, so why not try it out? But what to use it with? I was watching GBBO on netflix, and I was reminded of Caramel week's Millionaire Shortbread challenge. I had my answer.

 

But man, I know SO much more about making caramel now than I did this morning. The shortbread went fine, but the caramel was a serious roadblock. It turns out that the melted sugar is SUPPOSED to basically go back to looking like normal sugar, and THEN melt into caramel! Basically it melts twice, once into a type of simple syrup, and then into a proper caramel. I wish someone had told me that would happen before I started. The only previous time I made Millionaire's shortbread, I used cooked sweetened condensed milk, but that also struck me as cheating in some way (no offense to those who use it, but the baking purist in me needs to be indulged sometimes). 

 

This thread is for any discussion on nightmares or successes surrounding caramel, learning how to make it, and experiences with it.