Today on The Stay At Home Chef
I'm showing you how to make homemade caramels.
My grandma has always made the best caramels,
so I knew that if I was going to publish a caramel recipe,
it better be just as good or better than grandma's.
I'm happy to report these are easy to make,
and also amazingly delicious.
The first thing you need to do is butter a 9x13 pan.
I do this by just holding butter with the little wrapper that it comes in and rubbing it right on the pan,
make sure you get into the sides and corners as well.
Be sure to butter the pan really well because caramel is pretty sticky and you don't want it to stick.
Set that aside and then head on over to the stove.
You'll need to melt 1 cup of unsalted butter in a saucepan over medium heat,
and I do like to use non-stick for this,
though that's not required.
Once the butter is melted we're going to pour in one 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk.
Now a lot of recipes for homemade caramel use a different kind of condensed milk,
which you call evaporated milk,
however I like to use the condensed milk because it has the sugar added in.
It gives the caramel a smoother texture.
Next you'll add in 2 cups of brown sugar.
You could also use regular white granulated sugar for this,
but I like to use brown sugar for the little bit of molasses that's added in with that sugar.
And then last we'll add in 1 cup of corn syrup,
and I realize that this is a little bit of a controversial ingredient.
So, why corn syrup?
Well, it's because it's an invert sugar.
Adding this in will help prevent the formation of sugar crystals.
Nothing is worse than having your caramels crystalize.
You don't want that.
So if you don't want to use corn syrup,
well, you can easily make your own invert sugar using water, sugar, and something like citric acid.
There are lots of instructions for making your own invert sugar online,
and I'll link to those.
We'll give this a stir here using your rubber spatula,
scraping the sides and bottom as we go,
and bring it to a simmer over medium heat.
Now don't try and cheat and increase the temperature on this above medium.
It's a slow process and you just want to sit here and stir it the entire time.
We're looking for the caramel to reach the soft ball stage.
The soft ball stage is the ideal stage for homemade caramels.
Cook it too long and you'll end up with a firm caramel that sticks in everyone's teeth,
don't cook it long enough and your caramel will stick be liquid and will not hold its shape.
The easiest way to measure the soft ball stage is to use either a candy thermometer or an instant read.
You're looking for a temperature between 235 and 245 degrees Fahrenheit,
so we're almost there but not quite.
Now if you don't have a thermometer you can always measure it the old fashioned way.
You'll want some super cold water,
and then you just take some of your caramel and drip it on in.
You're basically just cooling off your caramel super fast so you can test it out.
So you want it to be able to form a ball in the water and harden up,
and then once you pull it out it should be soft enough that it still flattens a little bit as it heats up,
you don't want it to stay a total ball,
otherwise that'll be a hard caramel.
But of course using a thermometer will give you the most accuracy.
One helpful tip is that the caramel does tend to stall out in the 220 degree range,
so you'll just patiently wait for it to slowly creep up to that 235-245 range.
At this point you're gonna remove it from the heat,
then we're immediately going to stir in 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.
Stir this in well so that that salt disperses throughout.
Then once it starts bubbling like crazy you'll pour it into the prepared pan.
Then I'll run my rubber spatula through it real quick just to give you an idea of the texture.
The caramels will harden up as they cool.
I let mine cool at room temperature for at least 2 hours.
You want them to be completely cool before you slice into them.
Once the caramels are completely cool you can begin cutting them into little squares.
My favorite thing that my grandma does is to wrap them all each individually.
So you just take a little piece of wax paper,
wrap it over,
and then twist the ends.
Always a family favorite,
and these are ready to eat.
Thanks for watching.
You can find the full written recipe in the video description.
Be sure to subscribe, like, and follow, and check out the rest of my videos,
where you can find hundreds of restaurant quality recipes
you can easily make at home.
See you later.