Soft (Coconut) Caramels

Watching Sweet Genius has me inspired to use some of my free time to expand my pastry & confectionery repertoire. I caught a few episodes last season, but Ron Ben-Israel (the host-judge-color commentator of the show) came across a little cold. When the new season started, I started watching and it's like he's come to life. The literal sparkle in his eye is accompanied by a childlike joy he expresses about his craft. His passion is clear, and it inspires the same in me. It also makes me smile and giggle a bit.

I've had some success in the past with chocolate and making homemade marshmallow, thanks to Chocolates and Confections at Home with The Culinary Institute of America, so I sat down with the book to revisit what skills it had to teach. I realized it's a step-by-step, technique-by-technique training guide aimed at the home cook - covering chocolate and candy making.

Both chocolate work and candy making are really all about controlling temperature, in order to control how the sugar reacts. Sometimes, you want crystals; sometimes you don't. My candy thermometer hints at just how precise a science it is - with temperature markings switching to terms like 'Thread' and 'Soft Ball' when it gets in the 230-270 range, and listing 'Caramel' where the 340 degree mark should be. Even a 2 degree difference can spell the difference between a chewy candy and a soupy mess, as I learned first-hand this weekend.

Dan mentioned off-hand that he was craving caramels. I was looking for an excuse to try something I hadn't done before, so that was all I needed to hear. I grabbed the book and flipped to the section covering brittles, toffees and taffys (as well as hard candies and caramels).

I didn't have all the ingredients the book called for in it's 'Soft Caramels' recipe, but I thought I could probably switch out a 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk for a 14 oz can of coconut milk, and vanilla extract for a vanilla bean. Not exactly the same, surely, but I was eager to experiment.

Yesterday, with our friend Ruth coming over for some karaoke and take-out, I got to work on the caramels - combining all the ingredients in a saucepan and easing it up to 240 degrees F. It took longer than I anticipated because caramel tends to boil over, so I found myself eating lunch, chatting, and stirring hot sugary goodness. I think this made me over-eager to get it done. Despite an old-school test of the caramel in ice water showing it wasn't truly at soft ball stage, I poured the golden liquid into the awaiting buttered pan. 2 hours later, it was still essentially a liquid - a tasty, buttery liquid. We enjoyed a spoonful or two, but then left it.

Today, I revisited the candy. I know that some sugar mistakes can't be corrected. Overcook caramel or get a little water in your chocolate, and they're not much good (though the latter could be chopped and put in cookies.) But I figured a mistake of under-cooking sugar might be fixable - especially given how much butter was in the mix. So I put the mixture back in the pot and brought it carefully up to 245 on my infrared thermometer, and doing the ice bath test again to be sure. This time, after 2 hours of resting I had soft, chewy caramels that hold their shape.

Oddly enough, the coconut flavor was completely gone. I was surprised, but happy at least that the chemistry all worked out.

Soft Caramels
4 oz (1/2 cup) water
1 lb (2 cups) granulated sugar
1 tspn vanilla extract
1 can (14 oz) full fat coconut milk
12 oz (1 cup) light corn syrup
6 oz (12 Tbpsn) unsalted butter, softened (cut into about 12 pieces)
1 tspn salt

Lightly butter a 9x13 baking pan. Combine the water, sugar, vanilla, coconut milk, corn syrup and butter in a heavy bottomed 4 quart saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly with a heat resistant rubber spatula. Continue stirring while cooking until the batch reaches 245 degrees F - beginning to test the caramel using the spoon technique (below) when it hits 240. The cooled piece on the spoon should be firm but not hard. Remove from the heat and stir in the salt. Pour into the prepared pan. Allow to cool completely at room temperature, about 2 hours. Remove the sheet of caramels from the pan by turning it out onto a cutting board. Cut into desired size pieces with a sharp chef's knife. Wrap in wax paper or cellophane (or dip in chocolate).

Spoon Method for testing sugar temperature

Place a small bowl of ice water next to the saucepan of cooking sugar. (This is a great idea, anyway, in case a little of that molten sugar gets on your skin.) As the sugar boils, spoon small samples of the syrup out of the saucepan and immerse the spoon in ice water. Allow the syrup to cool in the ice bath for a few seconds, then remove the spoon from the water. Take the cooled sample between your thumb and forefinger and squeeze it to evaluate consistency.

Thread - will form a thread between your fingers

Soft Ball - will form a small, malleable ball when rolled

Firm Ball - will form a hard ball that cannot be flattened easily

Soft Crack - will form a flexible yet firm sheet

Hard Crack - will form a brittle sheet

Caramel - will be extremely brittle and exhibit the flavor, aroma, and brown color characteristic of caramel

Homemade Treats from Friends & Neighbors

This year we received an abundance of tasty gifts from friends, neighbors and coworkers.



Stephanie & Tom down the road brought us homemade Strawberry-Basil Jam, Brandied Pears, two kinds of fudge, caramels, and these little meringue pillows with candy-cane dust. You might notice the fudge & caramels got devoured before I could snap a photo.



Anna, Jason & Otis spoil us every year with delicious gifts dropped off on our doorstep - like little culinary elves visited us. Past years have been homemade tamales and homemade s'mores fixins, and this year we came home to a bounty of sweets.



Reverse rocky-road had me very intrigued, and a taste revealed them to be homemade marshmallows with chocolate and nuts swirled inside. Incredibly unique and equally yummy.

Spicy biscotti cookies studded with bright green pistachios and bright red cranberries were more flavorful than any biscotti I've tried.

And taking the award for most beautiful was the chocolate bark, which I still can't figure out how they made. It really looks like chunks of bark, with the intricate pattern of the wood etched into the chocolate, white chocolate and almond treat.

The Gift of S'Mores

Our good friends Anna, Jason, and their son Otis dropped off homemade graham crackers, homemade marshmallows, and a couple chocolate bars this holiday season, which we discovered on our doorstep early one morning accompanied by a poem they wrote. It was such a wonderful way to start the day, and we only wish we'd been awake (or perhaps heard them stop by) so we could have chatted a bit and shown them our place.

Now that one of our fireplaces is usable (we're still working on #2), we were able to make a s'more the old fashioned way the other night, and enjoy it. Tonight, we went new-school with our approach, making use of our gas stove to roast the marshmallow. Thankfully, in both cases we avoided a repeat of 'The Great Tamale Fire of 2008' - when I tried cooking up homemade tamales given to us by Anna & Jason & Otis last holiday season.

To anyone who's never had a s'more featuring both a homemade marshmallow and homemade graham cracker, I highly recommend it. The graham cracker was firm but still had a moist, chewiness to it, and (as you can hopefully see in the photo) was glistening with a sprinkling of sugar. The marshmallow was soft, and neither cloyingly sweet nor spongey like store-bought impostors. Maybe if we ask nice, Anna & Jason will share their recipes?