Honey Vanilla Caramels
A perfectly sweet treat that's much healthier than its corn-syrup counter part. Using fresh vanilla, cream and butter, these honey caramels are rich with ingredients from the homestead.
Ingredients
- 2 cups vanilla honey* or plain, fresh honey - we use raw, though it doesn't stay raw because of the high cooking temp
- 1 1/2 cups fresh cream - you can also use coconut cream
- pinch sea salt
- 1 tblsp vanilla extract if not using vanilla honey
- 1-2 tblsp butter
Instructions
- Get set up before you begin cooking the caramels. Generously butter an 11x9 baking dish. You can use a smaller dish if you'd like thicker caramels. Don't skimp on butter or you'll have a hard time getting the caramels out.
- Combine the honey, cream and salt in a medium, heavy saucepan. Make it your best pan because you need even temperature distribution when heating any kind of sugar. Heat to around firm ball stage on a candy thermometer - 245F/118C. Make sure your candy thermometer is working well and accurate. Stir this mixture often as it heats to prevent scorching. If you want a much firmer caramel, heat to hard ball stage of 255F/124C. We prefer caramels softer to prevent stress on our teeth.
- Once the mixture reaches temperature, remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the vanilla (if you need it) and butter until thoroughly mixed.
- Pour mixture into the greased pan and allow to cool on the counter or in the fridge/freezer. In the winter I can let my pan cool on the counter and expect the caramel to be firm enough to cut in about 40 minutes, give or take. In the summer, with my heat and humidity, they'd never set up! To cool quicker, you can place your pan in the freezer for about a half hour and then cut the caramels into squares.
- Once cut you can wrap the individual caramels in wax or parchment paper trimmed to fit. I usually keep these refrigerated until we give them away or eat them so they hold their shape well.
Notes
Troubleshooting:
If you're having trouble with set or separation of the cream, work through the following:- Are you using a heavy-bottomed pan? Thin pans can distribute heat unevenly and cause funky temperature and set issues.
- Are you heating the ingredients slowly? The most common reason for the cream to separate (or split in candy parlance) is heating the solution too quickly. Which is annoying because coming to temperature properly feels like it takes forever. Candy is what you might call slow food – it takes awhile!
- Are you using a completely clean pot that’s free of other grease, etc.?
- Are you using a candy thermometer to watch the temperature rise slowly and to be sure you’ve reached the required heat?
- If it’s particularly cold in your house, put the caramel in an empty ice chest wrapped in a towel and leave it overnight. Sometimes a caramel will split if it cools down too quickly. Wrapping it and placing it in the ice chest will insulate it and allow it to cool down a little more slowly.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!