Hey everyone here is Laurel's honey caramel recipe. We primarily make it for friends and family around Christmas. They can be mixed with a host of things or warmed and dribbled over apple slices.
Honey caramels melt in your mouth and make perfect Christmas gifts!!!
The directions are as follows:
1 cup Liquid Gold (Honey)
3/4 Cup Heavy Cream
1 1/2 teaspoon of Vanilla
6 tablespoons of room temp salted butter. (Both Salted and Unsalted will work)
Heat and mix honey and cream in a heavy-bottomed pan on medium heat. Using an accurate thermometer heat to 275 F. As soon as the honey/cream reaches 275 F. remove from heat and then the vanilla and butter should be added. Stir all of the ingredients together well and pour into a buttered glass container. Place the caramels in a fridge to cool.
Hey Alex. We always have used room temperature butter. However, throwing in a cold stick will probably just add to the time it takes to get to 275 degrees. Then again I have been wrong before.....
Ah sorry Alex. I was working on a project and for some reason confused the butter with the cream! Yes, I would warm the butter up. I am sure at that stage of the process room temp butter or warmer would be needed instead of cold butter..
I prefer salted butter but we have made them with unsalted and it turned out very good also. Thankfully either one works.
Kalona butter looks amazing! We use to have some neighbors we could get real milk and butter from but they moved. (Darn it)
Kerrygold is about as good as I can do now without driving 2 hours to Nashville. Thankfully I can raise and grow mostly what I want to eat but it is getting harder as the beekeeping grows to the find time.
We made a trial batch last night that was really good....added 1/3 cup of chopped pecans. :thumbsup:
My wife thinks the next trial should add a bit of salt and maybe more nuts....half a cup (maybe more) English walnuts. Black walnuts would be good too, but lots of work 'talking' them out of their shell.
Kamon, just got back from the store with two pints of heavy cream. Can't wait to make a batch of these or two. I will use salted butter and probably add a tiny bit extra salt as well to make it a salted caramel.
Just made the first batch. What I scraped off the spoon was yummy. The rest is still cooling.
Hey Kamon, wanted to update you on the caramels I made. The tulip poplar honey we get here has a pretty robust flavor profile and the caramels made from it only concentrated that flavor. I may try half honey/half sugar next go around to tone it down a bit. Otherwise, still very good. Also the store brand butter from Food Lion may have a lot of excess water in it as the caramels came out softer than I've made before. Next batch I will use clarified butter to reduce the moisture going into the finished candy. Now for some honey peanut brittle.
Ah yes Tulip is a stronger flavored honey that would be pretty aggressive on the tongue when condensed. However, I think it is the best honey for BBQ Ribs! The caramels can be cooked a little hotter before they burn and this will harden them a bit. Just be careful, one minute they are just right and the next they are scorched. Let me know how they go JW.
Well JW, I told the truth, but not the whole truth. Actually, my first batch was too soft. It never did get anywhere near solid even after sitting in the garage for a night. But, I removed both batches when thermometer hit 275F. I used honey from 2 different jars and am now wondering if the composition of the honey may make a difference. J
One is supposed to temperature check the accuracy of candy thermometer used. There's some trial and adjusting temperature beyond that. Too soft so need to go to a higher temp, too hard and go to a lower temp.
The 3-4 batches that we made were probably a bit softer than store bought caramel, but that's the way we like it. It doesn't stick to my teeth and makes it easier to chew. We added nearly a cup of black walnuts to our last batch too.....oh yumm!!!
Just talking about it makes me hungry for it again......time to crank out another batch or two. :thumbsup:
Success! I took mgolden's advice and checked my brand new thermometer. It was 30 degrees off (low)! It doesn't explain my too soft batch, but I used a different one and they came out perfect. Thanks for posting Kamon.
30 degrees low would make it turn out soft (undercooked)
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