A Lovely Little Bite: Salted Caramels

Last winter I attempted fleur de sel caramels a couple of times using a recipe from epicurious.com, with somewhat disappointing results. I wasn't able to get the texture quite firm enough. A few months later, I came across a recipe for salted chocolate-dipped caramels in The Moment Blog of the T: The New York Times Style Magazine. I printed out the recipe and added it to my stack of recipes I keep around and that I fully intend to get to some day.

A couple of days ago, I was trying to think of a project to use up the remainder of an open pint of heavy cream in the fridge, and I thought that it was finally time to give the recipe a try. The notable differences between this caramel recipe and the fleur de sel caramel recipe from epicurious.com are that this recipe includes honey, and it also requires you to bring the caramel up to 257 degrees on the stove (as opposed to 248 degrees in the epicurious.com version).

I poured my caramel into a pan lined with lightly-oiled parchment paper, and the caramel set very firm. It was easy to cut with an oiled knife after cooling and the cut caramels kept their shape nicely and were easy to handle as I wrapped them in waxed paper (which I buy pre-cut from Little Bitts in Wheaton). Just to save time, I skipped the step of coating the caramels in chocolate, but I can only imagine how tasty these things would be with chocolate. The caramels were creamy, buttery, and nicely salted. This will definitely be my go-to caramel recipe from now on! The recipe is very easy to put together, and you get a beautiful, delicious result!

Recipe: Salted Chocolate-Dipped Caramels from The Moment Blog of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, May 15, 2009.

Previous Posts:

• "A Salty-Sweet Creamy Treat," December 18, 2008.
• "Puddle of Caramel, Anyone?" December 28, 2008.