Bev and Ray generously sent me a tin of their amazing handmade caramels, and were additionally generous in sharing the recipe with me. I haven’t tried anything in the candy-making arena in over 15 years, since before I had a gas stove. In my prior residence, I did try to make caramel frosting on an electric stove and was constantly frustrated by the temperature bouncing up and down with the electric stove coil cycling on and off. These caramels were a good incentive to try again with the gas stove (and the amazing ChefAlarm thermometer, which Bev also uses and recommends!)

First observation is that this recipe calls for many, many, forms of sugar (and why shouldn’t it?). Second observation is that absolutely no-one will be surprised to hear that I somehow managed to overcook these. There was a little bit of burnt caramel on the bottom of the pan and I mistakenly scraped that up and it got mixed in. You can see the patch of dark stuff in the middle of the pan. I actually liked the addition of the burnt caramel flavor, but the issue is that the burnt part was also a bit harder, so the texture was off. I managed to contain the burnt part to one area of the finished product, so there were many caramels that were fine.

So, in my mental list of things that really don’t work with my tendency towards “bien cuit”, caramels are now included.