Easy Caramel And Caramel Sauce

Deep, dark, gooey, sticky and sometimes tricky, caramel lends itself to versatile use in baking and desserts in general. That gorgeous deep hue and the assertive caramel flavor is what it takes to make caramel based desserts look and taste good. Neither an undercooked caramel which is barely there like in my Caramel Custard or an overcooked burnt one (thankfully, I don't have an example of that on my blog!) will do. We need to cook it just right!

Using basic caramel, you can make caramel shards and spun sugar as attractive garnishes for your desserts. If toffee is your flavor, you will love caramel sauce drizzled over your brownies, ice cream, crepes, pancakes, cakes and most sweet things you can think of.  Except of course kheer or your favorite halwa.

Having had trouble earlier getting my caramel right, I thought I must share the recipe and method which has consistently worked best for me.

Caramel can be a wet caramel or a dry one. Dry caramel is just heating sugar it until it caramelizes. It is quicker to make, but there is the risk of your sugar burning easily. A wet caramel takes some time, but you are less likely to burn it as the water offers some protection. A splash of lime juice helps prevent crystallization.

If you watch this video on Fine Cooking you don't even need to read the recipe below. You will get your caramel right - just make sure you follow the instructions to the T. Most important, DO NOT stir the sugar mixture at any point of time, just swirl the saucepan. Wash down any sugar crystals on the sides to avoid grainy caramel. Do decide the flavor you need beforehand - light or assertive so that you cook it to the right stage.

Caramel

Getting ready : You will need

• A fairly large (2 quart / 2 liters capacity) light colored heavy bottomed saucepan with a handle
• A pastry brush sitting in half a cup of water
• A white plate on the counter
• A spoon
• Spatula
• A dish half filled with cold water. You will be plunging the saucepan into this to arrest the cooking process. 
• Ramekins or cake tin, dried and ready on the counter if the caramel is for Creme Caramel. 
• A fine meshed metal strainer suspended on a heat proof bowl, in case you need to strain it.

Ingredients :

Sugar -  200 grams / 1 cup
Water - 60 ml / 1/4 cup
Lime juice - 1/4 teaspoon

Procedure :

• Take the sugar, water and lime juice in the saucepan. On medium heat, bring it to a boil. (If in doubt, err on the side of lower heat levels). Keep washing down any sugar crystals on the sides of the saucepan with the wet pastry brush. Remember, do not stir. Swirl if needed. 

• Keep boiling for about 5-8 minutes and you will start seeing a change in the color at the edges. Keep washing the crystals down. Swirl periodically. This will help even out the color and also avoid burning at the hot spots. 
• To test as you see the color change, take a tiny bit of the caramel and drop it on the plate. You will see different shades as the caramel cooks.
• It will go from light amber to medium amber to dark amber, the flavor stronger as the color deepens. This transition happens really fast, so stay there! Light amber colored caramel has a lighter flavor, dark amber will have a slight bitter edge which is desirable.
• When the caramel turns a dark amber, take the saucepan off the heat and immediately plunge it into the cold water. Be careful not to splash water into the caramel. The caramel stays liquid - but only for a few minutes, so you have to use it up really fast! 

To make caramel sauce : Smooth, creamy and sweet, this is a sauce you will love for its toffee flavor! All you need to do here is first make the caramel and then add some cream and butter. As simple as that. Be sure the butter and cream are at room temperature or you will be 'shocking' the caramel, and the texture will suffer. Don't worry, the taste will still be good!

Ingredients :

(For caramel - Sugar -  200 grams / 1 cup
Water - 60 ml / 1/4 cup
Lime juice - 1/4 teaspoon)

Unsalted butter, very soft - 56 grams / 4 tablespoons
Salt - 1/4 teaspoon(or to taste) optional
Cream, at room temperature ( I have used Amul) - 180 ml / 3/4 cup (please read note)

• First, keep the butter out of the refrigerator, make sure its really soft. If the cream is cold, warm it slightly so that it comes to room temperature. 
• Make the caramel. When the caramel turns medium amber or dark amber (as you prefer), let the caramel remain in the saucepan over low heat. Add in all the butter (and salt if using) at once. Stir with the spatula to melt it completely. It may bubble up, so be careful. 
• Once all the butter is melted, take the sauce pan off the heat (leave the gas on), add in all the cream at one go. The caramel will bubble up high, and it may seize. Keep mixing and return the saucepan to the heat. Mix any seized up caramel back into the sauce, scraping the sides and bottom of the saucepan as you go. The sauce may appear to be still bubbling at this point, but will be smooth once you take it off the heat.
• Take off the heat, check the smoothness, add the vanilla. 
• If your sauce is not smooth enough, you can try pushing it through a fine meshed strainer. Cool completely and store airtight in the refrigerator. It will continue to thicken as it cools. 
• In the video, the butter is added to the sauce after the cream is added. I found that adding the butter to the caramel directly first gives a smoother sauce. (This is what most other recipes recommend)
• The sauce supposedly keeps for a few days (not sure exactly how many, a week at a conservative guess. Reheat in the microwave on high power for 20-30 seconds. Serve drizzled over anything you please!

The sauce has an assertive toffee flavor, is sweet and quite thick. I may add 1 cup of cream next time to thin it down a bit. If adding salt ( a good idea as it will help cut down the sweetness), you are supposed to add it along with the butter. In that case, mix the two together before you begin.

Think about all you can do with caramel as the base. And do bottle up some sauce for summer, you are sure to find some uses for it!

Winter Solstice Cookies

The baker's most awaited magical month is here! The time when compulsive bakers bake more than usual, reluctant bakers bake at least something! And those who don't bake wish they did! Come December, and you can feel Christmas in the air. If you did miss it - a one in a hundred chance, the magical, inspiring blogosphere constantly throws up gorgeous Christmassy  reminders saying 'Bake, bake'!

Stained glass window cookies, in my opinion, make fantastic festive edible decorations. Cookies you take delight in making, things your kids squeal over. Though the cookies taste good, what I don't enjoy eating is the stick-to-your teeth candy centers. Not that I can imagine I will relish eating sugar cookies decorated with royal icing. But the decorative part is the best part when we talk about these edible ornaments. Don't you agree? I have made these earlier, crisp eggless whole wheat cookies with candy centers. And this time, some chocolate cookies with caramel centers. These probably don't look as pretty as the non-chocolate ones, but then there are very few things which chocolate can't make up for!

Alice Medrich calls these Winter Solstice Cookies. Crisp cocoa cookies with amber centers letting the sun shine through. The cookies indeed bake up crisp and taste intensely of cocoa. If you are a cocoa lover,  you will love these. The dough is pretty simple, a slice and bake one. The cookies puff and spread quite a bit as they bake, so your only choice is to cut of the center after the cookies bake. And yes, you need to be careful when you make the caramel, the slightest bit of distraction or delay can cause it to overcook like mine and look darker (and slightly bitter) than you need it to be.

Winter Solstice Cookies - Adapted minimally from the book Chocolate Holidays

Ingredients 

All purpose flour - 130 grams / 1 cup

Unsweetened cocoa powder, Dutch process or natural - 1/2 cup (weighs 40 grams aprox)

Baking soda - 1/2 teaspoon

Baking powder - 1/4 teaspoon

Salt - 1/8 teaspoon

Unsalted butter, softened - 113 grams / 1 stick / 1/2 cup

Brown sugar, lump free - 1/2 cup, packed

White sugar - 1/2 cup ( I have used all white sugar, weighed and powdered fine)

Egg - 48 grams / 1 large

Vanilla extract - 1 teaspoon

To make the cookies (I made half of the below quantity)

• Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and the salt. Set aside. 
• In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and the sugar(s) with a hand mixer until smooth and creamy but not fluffy - about 1.5 minutes on speed 3. Mix in the egg and vanilla. 
• Add the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated. I used my hand mixer on the lowest speed for a few seconds. The dough will be sticky. 
• Form it into a log, 6 inches for the full recipe( 3 inches for half), 2 1/2 inches in diameter. (Do not make the logs thinner as it will be tough to cut out the windows later). 
• Wrap the dough well in clingfilm and chill it for at least 3 hours, preferably overnight. (I chilled it overnight)

Before you start baking the cookies, keep a sharp metal 1 inch round cookie cutter nearby. If you do not have one, try cutting with the sharp side of a metal piping nozzle as I did.

• Line your cookie sheets with baking parchment. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 F. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. 
• Using a sharp knife. cut the logs into 1/4 inch thick slices. Do bake one test cookie first, cut it out, check the window and cookie size and done-ness, the best way and time to cut out the center and then bake the rest. You are better off baking these in batches of  2 - 3 cookies. 
• Place them spaced 1.5 inches apart on the baking sheet (they spread). Wrap and refrigerate the remaining part of the log till your oven is free for the next batch. Or slice and place the remaining slices side by side on a baking sheet, cover well with clingfilm and refrigerate.
• Bake till the cookies puff up and settle down again, 10-12 minutes. Rotate the cookie sheets halfway through. I found that the cookies were easiest to cut immediately out of the oven. Let the cookies remain on the sheet when they come out, too fragile to slip out now.  Hold the tray with a small towel, and cut out the centers, using a repetitive turning motion( as you would twist open a bottle cap). Be gentle but decisive. The cookies tend to break as they crisp up quite fast.
• Carefully ease out the centers. The cookies crisp up as they cool. If they are not crisp, it means they needed more baking time.
• Transfer the cookies to an airtight container, placing them in a single layer. When all the cookies are done and you are ready to make the caramel, place them on a sheet of parchment. Space them an inch apart.

To make the caramel : Have a bowl of ice cold water ready near the stove. You will plunge the saucepan with the caramel in it to arrest further cooking. Check to be sure the water level is just enough, more may cause the water to splash in the caramel, the caramel will then seize. You will need a cup of water and a good silicon brush to dip and wash down the sugar crystals down the sides of the saucepan. A fork or skewer, a largish spoon  and a large white plate to test the caramel.

Sugar - 1 cup
Water - 1/2 cup
Lemon juice - 1/4 teaspoon

• In a light colored heavy bottomed saucepan, combine the sugar, water and the lime juice. Wash down any sugar crystals on the insides of the pan using the brush. 
• Over medium heat, stir gently (do not whisk) until most of the sugar has dissolved. Stop stirring and bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer 2 to 3 minutes to dissolve the sugar. 
• Uncover and wash down the insides with the brush. Without further stirring, continue to simmer until the syrup begins to color. This will take a couple of minutes, be patient. 
• Swirl the pan if needed to distribute the color evenly. Using a skewer or fork put a drop on the plate, the color will go from light amber to reddish to dark very quickly. Be really attentive. 
• When you see a nice reddish amber color, immediately take the pan off the heat and carefully plunge the saucepan in the cold water. This will arrest further cooking and help the caramel stay liquid for a few minutes. 
• Working quickly, spoon the caramel in the 'windows'. Let cool and harden. Store the cookies airtight.

Caramel tastes way better than candy pieces in the windows for sure, but it still remains hard and sticks to your teeth. That said, they still make pretty pieces on your tree with the sun shining through! So you do have a reason to bake these for Christmas.

Happy Baking!