Andrew's Wiki
Salt Caramels
At the end of every semester, I become bored and, consequently, very productive. The end of summer session affords no exception. After spring cleaning the house yesterday, adding 430 books to my Library Thing account, entertaining six people with the Rose Pistachio cake and the Grand Marnier Bundt, cleaning up after hostessing, teaching this morning, grading 24 final projects, and calculating grades, well, I just felt bored.
So, I broke out a recipe I’ve been meaning to try: in the fancy French, les caramels fleur de sel (with a nice internal rhyme there, care-a-mel, flur-day-sel), or, salt caramels. I’ve never made anything quite like caramels before, so today was a real experiment.
And experimenting = poor organization. For some reason, I truly love stacking the odds against myself by having a cluttered workspace while trying a new recipe. (On the other hand, I treat the old standby recipes with a perfectly organized workstation.) I always feel that I’m going to jinx a new recipe if the cooking process goes too smoothly—it feels like I’m missing something, I’m overlooking potential problems—so I’m hedging my bets by running around frantically.
Anyway, as a result, while I managed the boiling mixture of salt, cream, and butter on the burner, I kept running back to the counter on the other side of the room, making sure that the prepared pan was, indeed, well greased, and the parchment paper under-layer wouldn’t leak hot caramel into the pan itself, right as the aforesaid hot caramel leaked helter-skelter on the floor from the candy thermometer I toted around, holster-fashion.
That running trick—our kitchen is generously sized, I must admit—was not, however, the highlight of the experience. After I brought the sugar, corn syrup, and water to the boiling point, the pan, smoking and bubbling with a viscous, shiny yet muddy glare, looked not a little like a potential opening to the bowels of hell. After I carefully added the cream, this vicious, fiery little emulsion sizzled with the heat and sound of a double-sized Waffle House griddle on a Sunday afternoon. It expanded so quickly I fully expected a baptism in it, but luckily, it calmed down (“go down, faster, faster!” I coached my oven, slamming the knob down from the hellish “high” to a mild “keep warm”).
Two minutes later, the temperature was perfect … a little sooner than the ten minutes offered by the recipe, sure, but it still looked caramel-like as I poured it into the 88 pan and shook a little extra French gray sea salt atop:
After a very long, long, two hours later, waiting for the caramel to set, Andrew cut it up for me, grumbling all the way (“I’m going to have to sharpen my knife again!”) but doing a lovely job, as usual:
Up close, you can see some of the topping fleur de sel:
Thirty minutes and half a roll of wax paper later:
Yummy! Quite chewy, but once you’ve had one, you only notice the buttery saltiness. I definitely recommend the recipe, but make sure you have people around to eat them for you! Next time, I’ll try making full-blown confections, dipped in chocolate, rolled in nuts, etc.