Caramel

EXPERIMENTAL RECIPE

• 5 quarts Organic cane sugar
• 2 quarts skimmed milk
• 2 quart corn syrup
• 1 quart cream
• 1 quart lard

simmer together when hot add 1 pint heavy cream An excellent article

EXPERIMENT 2

Ingredients 8 oz butter (two sticks) 24 oz white sugar (about 3 cups) 6 oz (by weight)of heavy cream (about 3/4 cup) 9 oz of corn syrup (about 3/4 cup) 24 oz of homogenized milk (about 3 cups) and at the end 2 tablespoons vanilla. (at least!)

5 Times Batch

• 7.5 lbs Sugar
• 2.5 Lbs Butter
• 2.81 lbs (45 oz) corn syrup
• 1.875 lbs heavy cream
• 7.5 lbs milk

At the end 10 Tablespoons of Vanilla

Instructions

Start the pan heating on medium heat (you can be on the high side of medium to start, but probably want to turn it down once we’re boiling), and start adding the ingredients, except for the vanilla. You can let the butter melt a bit, but don’t let it brown before you get the ingredients into the pan. You don’t want that butter to go off and start Maillard’ing without the sugars.

• Stage 1: Thin, but the butter keeps separating (about 0:10 )

Keep it on medium heat and mixing this together. The fats in the butter will keep wanting to separate, but that’s OK. We’ll keep mixing it back in.

• Stage 2: Boiling (about 0:20 )

When bubbles start to appear, you’re starting the boiling process; That’s good. It’s a good indication that we’re between 210°F -220°F . We’re looking for a simmering boil, not rolling. Don’t try to accelerate this by getting it too hot. Just a nice slow boil.

• Stage 3: Foaming (about 0:25)

You’re going to notice that the milk solids start to float to the top, and you’ll have a lot of white froth. That’s good, that shows that everything is working fine. Keep stirring it back in.

• Stage 4: It’s turning color… (the long stage, until around 1:55 )

Over the next hour or so, the color is turning deeper brown, and it’s making good progress. You’re caramelizing now!

• Stage 5: It’s caramel! (around 2:00)

You’re going to get to the point, where the color and flavor are pretty darn good, all that’s left it to evaporate the moisture to where we want it. The hard part is that this is tricky to know what state you’re going to get the caramel when it’s room-temperature. You could pull it off here and have a pretty nifty caramel sauce, but sauce is for quitters! I use a spoon and a glass of ice water, dip the spoon into the pan and place it in the water. Wait a minute or so, and then see how hard it is. Pay attention to the temperature and compare it to room temperature when considering it’s hardness. Another way to see is try to pick some up out of the pan with the whisk and see if it sticks a bit. It definitely needs to stick to the whisk if it’s going to be solid.

This is a point that requires practice to get just right, but no worries, if you end up a bit soft after it’s cooled, you can put it back in the pan and take a bit more moisture out. If it’s too brittle, you can put it back in the pan and add more water to balance it. It’s at this stage you want to mix in the vanilla, or other flavors if you’d like. I tend to splurge and go heavy on the vanilla (probably about 4 tablespoons or so), but 2 tablespoons is what I’d call a bare minimum. If you’re trying out an add-on flavor like ginger, I use pure ginger juice and put about 1/3 cup in. Cayenne pepper is another popular choice, but that stuff is a lot stronger. A tablespoon or two at most is lots!