First, a note from the editor.
A love for sweetened chewiness has long possessed my heart -
From early childhood years ago my passions thus did start.
From rubber teat to playtime sweet or sugar candied strips,
'twas rare that dribble wouldn't glisten hanging from my lips.
Dentists since have told me that my teeth have turned quite rotten
And doctors speak of 'gaining girth' but this I have forgotten.
For when sweet salted caramel is placed in reaching grasp,
In my sweet salted sweaty hands those brown gems I must clasp
And relish in their morishness and feel my heartbeat quicken
As I indulge euphorically and feel my buttocks thicken.
Jenny Lewisohn
Yes, it's true. We're all in love in this house. Madly, desperately and passionately in love. In fact it's possibly more of an unhealthy obsession than love. It happened about a week ago when I brought home some of Bea's of Bloomsbury's chocolate salted butter caramels. It was a horrendous moment when I went to pay for them - £1 a chocolate, and a minimum of twelve chocolates. CHRIST! But, my feelings mellowed the instant I'd put one in my mouth. I was simply powerless to resist, destined for an ever-expanding waistline and rotted teeth, confidently culminating in bankruptcy. Unfortunately for me, they are everything I could want all in one place, the three ingredients I cannot live without: my holy trinity, my triple threat, my snap, crackle and pop: Butter, Salt and Sugar. They're all here and in such abundance with some cream thrown in! HOORAY! The total sum of these ingredients is a chewy but creamy, salty but sweet, chocolatey but caramelly..... Wow. My mouth is filling with saliva at the thought.
This house is not the first to fall for these luxurious treats and I doubt we'll be the last. It seems that the salted caramel first appeared on the scene in '70s Brittany, a region famed for it's salted butter. By the '90s Pierre Hermé had transformed these sweets into salted caramel macaroons and you can see it is in all sorts of forms these days, from salted caramel ice cream to M&S's best selling salted caramel profiteroles.
Here is the recipe for the chocolate coated salted buttered caramels. What a mouthful. And what a mouth full! You must measure carefully and should really have a sugar thermometer. I don't have a thermometer, so I had a guess at when to turn the heat on and off, which happily worked out fine.
Ingredients
180ml double cream
3/4 tbsp of flaky sea salt (Maldon)
160g golden syrup/corn syrup
200g caster sugar
4 tbsp salted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
A large bar of dark chocolate
Do It!
Do It!
Prepare a cake tin with lightly greased foil.
Boil together the cream, vanilla and 2 tbsp of butter and 1/2 tbsp of salt. Once the pan has boiled, switch it off but keep it warm by keeping it on the hob.
Then, bring the sugar and golden syrup to the boil until it reaches 310°C. Add the other 2 tbsp of butter and turn the sugar off.
Now, pour in the cream mixture. Turn the heat on again and boil to 270°C.
Pour the mixture into the prepped cake tin and leave it to cool for 10 minutes before sprinkling the rest of the salt over the top.
Wait another 15 minutes before you cut the sweets using a sharp knife.
Melt the dark chocolate over a pan of boiled water and cover the caramels.
Leave the chocolates to cool in the fridge.
Try not to eat them all.
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