Aunt Val's Caramel - the Best Ever Homemade Caramel Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What makes homemade caramel hard? ›

Temperature is key when making candy. The difference between a soft caramel and one that's hard and overcooked is all in the temperature. Candy thermometers—like this instant-read thermometer—let you know exactly what stage the caramel is in (thread, soft-ball, firm-ball, hard-ball, soft crack or hard crack).

Sugar Note: Most chefs say that only granulated sugar can be successfully caramelized; other sugars — such as brown sugar and unrefined sugar such as cane sugar — contain impurities that can inhibit caramelization. It's those impurities that can burn before the sugar has time to caramelize.

Because it contains a ton of sugar. An easy caramel/dulce de leche that students have made for many, many years: bring a pot of water to the boil, lower heat to low simmer. Put in an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk. Let it cook for at least a half hour, probably more.

Baking Soda: Arguably the most important ingredient! The purpose of baking soda in the caramel is to react with the acidic ingredients (brown sugar, cream of tartar, and corn syrup), which creates tiny carbon dioxide air bubbles.

To thicken a caramel sauce, use one tablespoon of cornstarch or tapioca starch (sometimes known as tapioca flour) and one tablespoon of water per cup of caramel. Then simmer the caramel, stirring it constantly with a wooden spoon until it becomes thick.

Swirl, don't stir: While slow, deliberate stirring will help the sugar dissolve evenly, you want to stop stirring once it has fully melted.

There are two basic methods of making caramel – wet and dry; the basic difference between the two methods being water. Essentially both methods are heating sugar, then adding fat (butter and cream, typically); but the wet uses water to dissolve the sugar faster.

You should use refined white granulated or caster sugar to make caramel. Avoid using brown sugar or raw cane sugar as they contain impurities that inhibit caramelisation and also the already brown colour can make it harder to assess when the all important reaction is taking place.

The temperature of the caramel can rise so rapidly that it is hard to keep it in the desired temperature range, shown above. As a result, the caramel could burn and taste bitter.

Can you use milk instead of heavy cream in caramel? ›

Sugar, water, salt, and milk are the base ingredients for any caramel. Can I substitute milk for heavy cream in caramel? Absolutely! You can use any milk you have at home, whether whole, non-dairy, or evaporated, to make a deliciously creamy caramel sauce.

This is a simple baking hack to create 'Carmel in a Can' (Dulce De Leche). It comes together super easy, all you need to do is take the label off a can of condensed milk, fire it into boiling water for about 3 hours (make sure it's fully under the water) and boom, it's ready to go.

Is it safe to boil my can of sweetened condensed milk to make caramel sauce? No. For safety reasons, we do not recommend heating a can of our condensed milk, opened or unopened. The current can is not designed to withstand high temperatures.

You can make dulce de leche by cooking down milk and sugar in the stove top, with the addition of baking soda to help the reactions that occur in order to form a thick and rich dulce de leche. The results: A dark sauce, slightly gritty, thick but not pipeable.

Baking soda makes the onions more alkaline, which speeds up the browning reactions necessary for properly caramelized onions. But it also weakens the pectin that holds the onion's cells together, turning what should be soft but distinct pieces of browned onion into a nauseating stew of pea-green mush.

Add an acid: Adding an acid keeps sugar from recrystallizing by breaking down a portion of the sucrose molecules into fructose and glucose molecules. Our Caramel Sauce, for instance, includes cream of tartar as insurance against the sugar crystallizing.