I have a natural tendancy to over-extend myself. This includes everything from over-booking my weekends to taking on too many projects. I thought the caramels might be in that category since my experience with candy making in the past hasn’t been all that successful. However, I’ve discovered while making these – that you can fix a sugar concoction that was screwed up on the first go! Food & Wine had an article on homemade gifts in their Holiday Guide section and these chocolate-dipped vanilla caramels looked so pretty I had to try them! Make sure you use a good quality butter because that is where a lot of your flavor will come from. I didn’t cook the caramel long enough the first time, and it did not harden enough. The next day I scraped it all out of the pan, put it back on the stove and reheated it to 255 degrees. It turned out much better the second time around!
Chocolate-Dipped Vanilla Caramels
Ingredients
- 2 sticks unsalted butter
- 2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 cup light corn syrup
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped – I used vanilla bean paste
- Coarse sea salt, crumbled
- 1 pound bittersweet chocolate, melted (optional) – I used the Wilton dark cocoa Chocolate Melts
Directions
- Line a 9-by-13-inch pan with foil; spray it with vegetable oil. In a heavy saucepan, melt the butter. Add the sugar, corn syrup and cream and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Add the vanilla seeds. Cook over moderately low heat, stirring, until a golden caramel forms and the temperature reaches 245° on a candy thermometer, 1 hour. Stir in 1 tablespoon of salt and scrape the caramel into the prepared pan. Let cool and set completely overnight.
- Lightly oil a sheet of parchment paper and line 2 baking sheets with wax paper. Invert the caramel onto the parchment and peel off the foil. Using a sharp knife, cut the caramel into 1-inch-wide strips and then into 1-inch squares. Dip the squares into the chocolate, tap off the excess and transfer to the wax paper on the baking sheets. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and refrigerate for 10 minutes. Alternatively, wrap the plain caramel squares in wax paper and tie with thread.
