- If you like caramel,
you're gonna love my homemade caramel recipe.
When you make it at home,
you control the level of caramelization from light to dark.
It's all up to you and it's gonna be
silky smooth every time.
Hey, everyone.
You're watching "Preppy Kitchen,"
where I John Kanell,
teach you how to make delicious homemade dishes
to share with your family and friends.
This caramel will be ready in a snap.
So let's get started.
First off,
get all of your ingredients together.
You want your cream,
your butter, your salt, your sugar,
your water, your pastry brush.
Even your whisk, everything handy.
You don't wanna be scurrying around the kitchen
when something's about to bubble over.
So get it in place and then into a medium pot,
add one and a half cups or 300 grams of granulated sugar.
In you go.
All that sugar right into the pot.
Give it a little shake.
I'm gonna add in a quarter cup or 60 ML of plain water.
Nothing fancy.
If you've ever made a caramel at home
and it's all like crunky, gunky,
like seized up after it's cooled down instead
of being silky and wonderful,
it's because it was stirred too much.
You do not want to stir the sugar and water at all
as soon as it's on heat.
What we can do is just use,
I can use my whisk and just move things around gently,
moving some of that dry sugar into the wet area
and tapping it around just a bit.
Gentle, gentle, gentle.
Then my mixture is mostly soaked in
and now we're gonna place it over a medium heat.
What can you do?
Almost nothing.
It has to just be on its own.
One thing that you can do is mind the sides though.
When you make a caramel or really anything over a high heat,
it's nice to have a thick walled pot.
If it's really thin,
it'll scorch and get really hot.
It's gonna ruin things.
So we do not want the sides to scorch
but we can't really mix it.
What we can do is get a brush,
wet it and just wet the sides down.
So occasionally you can take a look,
run a wet brush along the side
and the water will wash the sugar down.
That's it.
Take a look, mind your sugar, be patient,
and once it starts darkening
and becoming a beautiful caramel color,
then you can do something.
I'll show you that in a moment, though.
For now we wait.
Watch.
So just while we're waiting,
when you make your own caramel at home,
it is just like transcendently good.
Here, you could add a little bit of extra salt.
You could go to town,
like take it darker,
like get the bitterness out of the caramel
if you like that sort of thing,
which I do.
Or you can leave it really nice and light and blonde.
It's up to you,
It's your caramel.
Then you can do so many things with it.
This is one of my favorite additions
to a meringue based buttercream.
So you could make let's say a Swiss meringue buttercream.
You can click up here for that
and then fold in as much caramel as you like.
(sighing)
I actually used it for my caramel cake.
It was like caramel, caramel, caramel, caramel.
That's a good recipe.
You can click up here for that
if you want caramel cake.
(blowing kisses)
So as you look into the pot right now,
you can see it's like the most least amount
of work I've ever done on camera.
As you look at the pot,
you can see that it's starting to bubble now.
Clearly the outside is getting hotter than the middle.
You're like, mm, I wanna stir that up.
But you can't.
If you stir it up,
you're gonna like do some crystallizing nonsense
and your caramel is not gonna be smooth
and silky drippy.
It'll kind of form some crystals after it cools down.
So we don't wanna do that.
What you can do is give it a swirl.
You can gently just swirl it around.
That's all it needed.
Just a little bit.
But now wash the sides down.
That's it.
And then you keep waiting.
(laughing)
It is kind of mesmerizing to just stare at the bubbles.
It's like watching a fire
but it's even hotter,
so don't touch.
Okay, so my sugar is just starting to turn
a light, golden color.
I want it to be a really nice amber.
But like I said,
you can make a dark caramel.
For all of you bitter lovers,
it takes the sugar down a notch
and really like just wrenches some flavor out of it.
Or it could be a traditional light colored caramel.
Okay.
Golden brown, taking it off heat.
It's off.
This is parts when we get crazy.
Now I have one cup of cream.
That's 240 ML and a whisk vigorously
(upbeat music)
And by the way,
either have your extractor on
or blow 'cause you do not want to get a steam burn.
It came close but I pulled it through.
Okay.
Now what is this?
We have a magical mixture of hot caramel.
This is actually so perfect.
I can't even tell you.
We're gonna add in five tablespoons of butter.
In you go.
Just stir so it melts.
I've made caramel before where it is like,
it basically forms like a toffee or something
when you add the cream in,
'cause it's a little too hot.
But all you have to do is be patient
and keep stirring and you could bring it back.
Now we're going to place this over a low heat.
Cook for an additional two to three minutes.
I'm watching for the cream to see if it bubbles up.
I want it to get nice and bubbly before I take it off heat.
Bubbling vigorously.
It's been about two to three minutes
so stir, stir, stir,
and remove from heat.
It's off heat right now.
I'm adding in a healthy half teaspoon of salt.
So sprinkle that in
and you can give it a little bit of a stir,
a swirl.
I'm gonna carefully transfer this.
Some into a bowl.
Look at that color.
What?
And this can go into the Mason jar.
This caramel will keep for up
to two weeks in the refrigerator.
Just have it in an airtight container and keep it cool.
If you're using your caramel right away
and you wanna cool it down fast,
add it to a large dish,
like a pie dish or a cake pan.
More surface area.
It'll be much less time than this takes to cool.
As soon as this cools down just a little bit,
I'm gonna give it a taste.
Before I take a taste,
if you like this recipe,
check out my frosting playlist.
All my favorite frostings, ganaches,
and all sorts of things to make every dessert delicious.
Now it's time for a taste.
Mm.
Oh gosh.
It's so good when you get that dark, dark sugar,
because it brings out a ton of flavor
and just a little bit of bitterness.
I really hope you get a chance to whip some up.
If you like my videos,
hit the like button and subscribe
and I'll see you in the next frosting video.