Making & Using Caramel: Techniques & Recipes for Candies & Other Sweet Goodies. A Storey BASICS® Title
112
Making & Using Caramel: Techniques & Recipes for Candies & Other Sweet Goodies. A Storey BASICS® Title
112eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781612126432 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Storey Publishing, LLC |
| Publication date: | 01/26/2016 |
| Series: | Storey Basics |
| Sold by: | Hachette Digital, Inc. |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 112 |
| File size: | 6 MB |
About the Author
Bill Collins is the author of Making & Using Caramel, How to Make Chocolate Candies, Knife Skills, and Making & Using Vinegar. A graduate of the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, he cooked at the old Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Boston and directed new product development at Harbor Sweets (Salem, Massachusetts) prior to establishing Chef Bill, Inc., in 2001. He has been a professional chef, a personal chef, a food industry consultant, and a cooking instructor, giving classes everywhere from community colleges to Whole Foods to Stonewall Kitchen. As Chef Bill, he has written newspaper columns on kitchen skills. He lives in Pelham, Massachusetts.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
PART ONE
Introduction to Caramel
What is caramel? Some people call it a chewy candy. Others describe it as a rich sauce for ice cream, the gooey center of a dark chocolate truffle, or the sweetest and crunchiest version of popcorn. Caramel is all that — and more. No matter how you define it, homemade caramel is both simple and special.
Armed with a digital thermometer, a sturdy pot, and some helpful techniques, you'll be able to create great caramel every time. The caramelizing process itself is simple: you heat sugar to a specific high temperature, so that it turns from light and opaque to a golden color to a deep brown. When you add cream and butter to the cooked sugar, you end up with a confection that's just amazing. But there's no need to stop there — this book will also show you how caramelizing works its magic in pies, cakes, brownies, and even vegetables.
Essential Equipment
You won't need to buy any fancy equipment to make caramel. In fact, you may already have everything you need in your kitchen just waiting to be put to work.
Candy Thermometer
To get the desired results when you're making caramel, exact temperatures are important. Too low a temperature and you'll get a dull, semi-tan puddle; too high and your burned, blackened mass will make a rock seem soft in comparison. Using a candy thermometer removes much of the temperature guesswork. My favorite type of candy thermometer is digital. You can get one for less than $25, and it should come with a clip so you can attach it to the side of the pot and monitor the rising temperature without holding onto the thermometer. Most digital thermometers also come with an alarm; you can set them to beep when your chosen temperature approaches so you know exactly when to take the caramel off the heat. Make sure the tip of the thermometer doesn't rest against the bottom of the pot (the pot itself is hotter than the liquid) or you won't get an accurate temperature reading.
Hard crack: 300°F to 310°F. The sugar will form threads that break when bent. This is the highest temperature you'll want for cooking with sugar; above this point the sugar mixture will burn, so make sure you remove the pan from the heat. This is the temperature for toffee and brittle (the word brittle refers to the texture and breakable nature of the candy).
A thermometer is the best way to determine that your caramel has reached the desired temperature. However, it's also possible to test for any particular stage without a thermometer. Simply take a scant half teaspoon of the hot sugar (or sugary mixture) and put it into a glass of very cold water (you can add an ice cube if you don't think the water is cold enough). When it hits the water, the sugar will cool instantly, becoming gooey, hard as a rock, or somewhere in between, depending on its stage of cooking. This clever test will tell you what the texture of the sugar would be if you were to stop the cooking and cool the mixture. If you don't have a thermometer, this is a reliable test for doneness. If you do have a thermometer, then this is a fun way to confirm that your thermometer is correct and that you'll have the desired outcome for the candy's texture.
The Stages
When you heat sugar, it's not just "uncooked" and then "cooked" sugar. Sugar goes through several identifiable stages, each with a name and corresponding temperature:
* Thread: 230°F to 235°F. This stage rarely comes up in candy making. It's such a low temperature that it mainly applies to a simple syrup, after the sugar has dissolved.
* Soft ball: 235°F to 240°F. The sugar will form a mushy, pliable ball. This is the stage for fudge and other confections with a fudge-like texture.
* Firm ball: 245°F to 250°F. The sugar will form a firm but still pliable ball. This is the stage for marshmallows.
* Hard ball: 250°F to 265°F. The sugar will form long threads. You can form a ball with it, but it will be barely pliable.
* Soft crack: 270°F to 290°F. The sugar will form threads that are barely flexible, bending just slightly. This is the stage for butterscotch.
A Large Heavy-Duty Saucepan or Stockpot
Just as important as the thermometer, a heavy-duty metal pot will evenly heat the caramel to its high temperature. Avoid thin, lightweight pots, which will increase your chances of burning the caramel. Nonstick pans aren't a good choice either, as the nonstick surface often degrades over time — whether from damage or just from wearing out — and this can affect the flavor of the food you're cooking, especially at the high temperatures called for in making caramel.
As for size, I prefer an 8-quart saucepan or stockpot. This may seem large, but when you add the cream to the sugar, the very hot mixture will often bubble up in the pan and instantly (though temporarily) double or triple in volume. Using a large pot reduces the chance of the hot caramel bubbling over and causing injury or cleanup headaches. If you don't have an 8-quart pan, a 4- or 5-quart pan will also work. Just be extra cautious to keep the mixture from bubbling over the sides of the pan.
Stirring Utensils
Heatproof spatula: A spatula is the ideal tool for stirring the caramel and getting every last drop out of the saucepan or bowl. But just because a spatula is made of rubber doesn't mean that it's heatproof. Check the package, or the spatula itself, to make sure it can withstand heat up to at least 400°F.
Wooden spoon: You can use the back of a large wooden spoon (or an offset-handle spatula if you have one) to spread thin mixtures, such as toffee. And if you don't have a heatproof spatula, a wooden spoon can take its place for stirring and scraping. However, wooden spoons can sometimes introduce small amounts of moisture in the middle and later stages of cooking caramel, which can then trigger the creation of sugar crystals and cause your sugar mixture to seize. For this reason, the heatproof spatula is more reliable for making caramels.
Whisk: Called for in many recipes, a whisk will combine the ingredients much better and faster than a heatproof spatula or wooden spoon.
A Pastry Brush
A pastry brush, which is typically used for brushing sauce or an egg wash onto foods, has a special purpose when you're making caramels: when the sugar mixture is boiling, you will use a damp pastry brush to wash down the inside walls of the pan to prevent the sugar from crystallizing and seizing. A traditional bristle brush is a better choice than a silicone brush, which can't hold even a bit of water. Just make sure no bristles come off in the pan.
Parchment and Waxed Paper
In many recipes for baked goods, parchment paper is used interchangeably with waxed paper, usually with similar results. However, when making caramels, I recommend using parchment instead of waxed paper to line the pan or baking sheet when required. The high temperature of caramel may cause the waxed paper to soften and melt into the caramel, negatively affecting the flavor. Parchment paper, on the other hand, can withstand the high heat and will not harm the caramel's flavor.
Waxed paper does come in handy for wrapping the individual candies, especially soft caramels, after they have cooled. You can also purchase special caramel packaging materials at hobby stores like A.C. Moore, Michaels, and various online sites.
Kitchen Scale
A kitchen scale isn't crucial, but it will take the guesswork out of some measuring and make your kitchen time a bit shorter. It's usually faster to weigh an ingredient, like butter or chocolate, rather than approximating its weight or measuring it by volume.
The Main Ingredients
The basic ingredients for making caramel are just as simple as the required equipment. Take a look in your pantry and refrigerator; you might already be fully stocked! When you move beyond making the basic chewy caramel, be sure to read the recipe carefully to see what other ingredients you might need, such as nuts and chocolate.
Sugar
Granulated sugar, also called refined sugar, is the main ingredient in caramels. This is the white table sugar that's commonly used in baking. When subjected to high, steady heat, this white, granular sugar transforms into the browned goo that serves as the foundation of caramels.
Corn syrup helps bring body and sweetness to baking and cooking. Corn syrup is an invert sugar, a combination of fructose and glucose. What this means for making caramels is that corn syrup can also help prevent granulated sugar from crystallizing during the various stages of heating. (Crystallizing almost always leads to the sugar seizing, which leads to you having to start your caramels all over again.) Note that corn syrup is not the same as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), and it has not been associated with the many health problems linked with HFCS.
There are two types of corn syrup: light and dark. The main difference is that dark corn syrup also contains a type of molasses, which gives it its color and a slightly sharper flavor. While I prefer light corn syrup, both syrups are considered to be interchangeable for almost all recipes, including candy making.
Brown sugar is a combination of granulated sugar and molasses. Dark brown sugar has more molasses than light brown sugar. I prefer using dark brown sugar for the recipes in this book, but light brown sugar works well too.
Molasses is the syrupy liquid that is left over from the refinement of sugar, when the juice of sugarcane or sugar beets is boiled and the sugar crystals are extracted. Two types of molasses are available in most supermarkets. The most popular kind has been boiled twice; this is what is used in most baking and cooking, including the recipes in this book. Bitter blackstrap molasses has been boiled three times.
Other sweeteners, such as honey, agave, maple syrup, and stevia, are not as commonly used in caramels as the other sugars we've just named. You might experiment with using them for a variety of reasons, including flavor and healthfulness, or even try them as a sugar substitute if you find that you've run out of your intended sugar after you've begun cooking. There are enough variables in flavor, texture, and chemical makeup in each of these alternative sugars to assure one thing: each will bring about a different result if you simply replace one sugar for another in a recipe. For example, corn syrup and maple syrup have similar textures and are both very sweet. However, if you were to use maple syrup in place of corn syrup in your caramel recipe, the flavor and texture of the finished product would be very different. You would probably end up with a maple-flavored caramel — and who knows, it might be a new favorite!
Butter and Cream
Butter and cream are the two key ingredients that give flavor and texture to your caramel. I prefer unsalted butter in all of my cooking, and especially so when making caramel. The main reason is that salted butter can contain a varying amount of salt, and this might make it difficult to get the right amount of saltiness in your food. With caramel, you can't test its saltiness as it finishes cooking because it will have a temperature of around 300°F. (If you think a grilled cheese sandwich can burn your tongue, then you haven't made the absentminded mistake of sampling molten caramel.) That's one reason why you want to be able to control the amount of salt: because the flavor can't be adjusted once the caramel cooks and then cools. Do not try to be clever and take a spoonful of cooked caramel to cool for sampling; while you're attempting to cool it enough that you dare taste it, you run the risk of burning the rest of the caramel that's still in the pot. Cooking caramel needs to be watched very carefully — timing is everything.
Most of the recipes in this book call for heavy cream (which can be used interchangeably with whipping cream). Unlike milk — which can easily scorch and burn, resulting in bad taste and/or undesirable texture — heavy cream can stand up to high cooking temperatures.
Vanilla Extract
For the recipes in this book that call for vanilla extract, use good-quality pure vanilla extract rather than imitation extract. Pure vanilla extract is made by infusing vanilla beans in a solution of alcohol and water. It is expensive because it's labor intensive to harvest the beans and prepare the extract, but it's an ingredient that you don't want to select based on lowest price. Look on the product label for regional names like Bourbon, Madagascar, Tahitian, and Indonesian. Vanilla extracts made with beans sourced from these areas are usually good quality, which will make a big difference in the flavor of your caramel.
Imitation vanilla extract is also readily available, and for a lower price. But its milder flavor will result in an inferior-tasting confection. This is because a key ingredient is synthetic vanillin, which is not as flavorful as natural vanillin. Yes, pure vanilla extract costs noticeably more than imitation extract, but its flavor is vastly better. And because you will use it in such small quantities, you will hardly notice the price difference over time.
Always add vanilla extract at the end of the cooking process. If you add it earlier, the alcohol will cook off, resulting in no vanilla flavor at all — that would make it very expensive indeed.
Salt
The basic function of salt in cooking is to elevate or enhance the flavors of the other ingredients, helping them stand out a bit more. But in recent years, salt has emerged as a revolutionary flavor in its own right. Many candies, including caramel, are enhanced by the addition of salt, and I encourage you to experiment with it. Add a pinch of salt at the end of the cooking process, or use a flaky salt as a flavorful decoration on the candies, such as the Molded Chocolate Caramel Truffles with Sea Salt. But when you add it, add a bit at a time. It's better to add too little the first time than too much. Gradually increase the amount you use until you find the perfect balance.
When making caramels, sea salt will provide the best results because it's the most flavorful. Kosher salt won't be as flavorful, but it's a fine second choice if you don't have any sea salt. Avoid using iodized table salt in caramels. Although it's the most popular salt in the world, it's also the least flavorful. It's worth making that extra trip to the store for sea salt.
Success with Caramel 101
The main thing that can cause a calamitous candy problem when you're making caramel is crystallization. Crystallization is just what it sounds like: as the sugar gets hotter and the liquid in the sugar evaporates, small crystals can form. And if they get in contact with each other, they can quickly become larger, solid chunks of hardened crystal. When this happens, a chain reaction takes place and the sugar quickly goes from a gooey hot mixture to an immovable brick block. It is sometimes possible to halt and reverse the crystallization by adding some corn syrup or a bit of cream and stirring rapidly. But this doesn't always work, and a better goal is to prevent the crystallization from starting in first place.
The key to avoiding crystallization lies in adhering to a few simple rules:
* Don't stir. Almost every non-caramel recipe on the planet encourages stirring because stirring helps foods cook evenly and can prevent burning. But when you're caramelizing sugar, stirring gets in the way of proper chemistry. Once the sugar has dissolved and the temperature is rising, any stirring motion will deposit sugar along the sides of the pan, even if you think you're being careful. That sugar, now stuck to the side of the pan and without the liquid in the pan to keep it moving around and heating properly, will quickly lose every last bit of its moisture and start to crystallize. It is okay to gently swirl the pan around to move the bubbling sugar a bit. But no stirring!
* Once the sugar mixture has come to a boil, wash down the inside walls of the saucepan with a damp pastry brush. The moisture will keep sugar from sticking to the walls of the pan, which will prevent crystals from forming. Just dip the pastry brush in water so it is more than damp but not dripping wet, and brush it quickly over all the inside walls of the pan.
* Add a little something to the sugar when you start to cook it. Generally, there are three basic methods to start caramel: heat only sugar in the pan, heat sugar and water, or heat sugar with some or all of the other ingredients. Crystallization can occur when the hot sugar mixture loses too much moisture too quickly, so it's best not to just heat the sugar alone. Yes, this method works most of the time. Its success is based on the fact that the sugar itself often has just enough liquid to keep the mixture moist so that it can begin caramelizing. But this method can be unpredictable, which is why I don't use it. I prefer to add water (or other ingredients) to the sugar before I start to heat it, which gives me more control over the process. The extra moisture helps ensure that the sugar won't become too dry. This method, combined with washing down the inside of the pan, works very well.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Making & Using Caramel"
by .
Copyright © 2016 William Collins.
Excerpted by permission of Storey Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Part One: Introduction to CaramelEssential Equipment
The Main Ingredients
Success with Caramel
Part Two: The Recipes
Candies, Brittle, and Toffee
Sweet and Savory Sauces
Pies, Cakes, and Other Desserts
Resources
Metric Conversion Chart
Index