From watching many baking shows over the years, I’ve always thought “Caramel is one thing I know I will never master” so I never tried it… until now! I’ve seen how easily it can go wrong and how taking your eye off it for 1 second can make it burn. Also, I’ve seen many recipes out there that involved salted caramel, and weirdly enough, the majority of recipes included salted caramel from a jar. As this whole experience is about pushing myself, I knew I had to make it from scratch.
You will need:
200g sugar
90g salted butter, at room temperature cut into cubes
120ml double cream
1 teaspoon salt
Method:
1. Heat the sugar in a medium saucepan over a medium heat, I used a bigger saucepan than I thought I needed as later on the mixture will bubble and splatter. Stir the sugar constantly, it will clump and you will think you’ve done it wrong like I did, don’t worry that’s perfectly normal. In time you will get a amber coloured liquid, keep stirring until all the sugar has dissolved.
2. Once all the sugar has dissolved, add in the cubed butter, again, don’t stop stirring! The butter will make the mixture bubble a lot, this is why I used a bigger saucepan. At this stage I did switch to a whisk as Sally recommended as it is difficult to get the butter to incorporate to the caramel with just a spatula.
3. Once all the butter has melted into the caramel slowly add in the cream while stirring (literally do not stop stirring, my wrist was hurting so bad at this point) the cream will make the mixture splatter a lot, I did get splatters of hot sugar onto my arms, next time I will be wearing long sleeves.
4. Leave the mixture to boil in the pan for about 1 minute, remove from the heat and add in 1 teaspoon of salt. Allow the mixture to cool before using. As it cools, the texture will change to a thicker liquid than when it was hot.
Warm the caramel up for a few seconds before using it in a recipe.
So it’s safe to say that making caramel was not as terrifying as I thought, it was really quick and easy and i’m so happy that I’ve now mastered it!
Thanks for reading!
Kate.