Caramel is my absolute favorite candy! I love the hard candy and chewy variety. Unfortunately, I have found that I did tend to eat more of the prepackaged caramel than make it at home. Then I realized it was because if seemed like I could never master the art of making caramel.
Then I uncovered the mistakes that I was making. These mistakes were keeping me from perfecting my caramel recipes!
Once I corrected these mistakes I have been making and eating more homemade caramel then the store bought brands! Plus, I have had orders for people to buy my candy. You can do the same thing! You simply need to uncover your mistake then correct it.
Here are the following 5 reasons that my initial masterpiece became an ugly sight.
· High Heat
· Lack of Patience
· Transferring it to the wrong containers
· Lack of Candy thermometer
· Too Much Butter
High Heat
When cooking caramel you have to be extremely careful. One reason is that you can burn yourself pretty badly, and if you get some smoking hot caramel on your skin it will stick to you. That is why it is best to melt your sugar at a moderately high temperature and not an extremely high temp. Also extreme heat when cooking caramel can cause you to burn the recipe. Once that happens you have to start all over again simply because the burnt flavor will dominate the taste of your candy.
Lack of Patience
When you cook with chocolate it can be pretty straight forward and simple. Often times it recipes only require you to melt and pour. With caramel you have to be a bit more patient. It takes caramel longer to melt and smooth out. So when you are about to take on this new task bring your patience along.
Using the Wrong Containers
As stated before caramel can get really HOT! That is why you need to make sure that you have transferring dishes that can stand the heat! I cannot count how many times I melted through some of my plastic containers or molds trying to transfer my caramel. So read before you buy. Find out how much heat that your mold or container can with stand. If it is plastic don’t even try it!
Too Much Butter
The taste of butter is delectable. Some caramel recipes require that you use butter some do not. You have to realize that too much butter can contribute to the burning of your dessert dish always use a little bit less than what the recipe requires and do not add extra if you want to avoid a burnt sticky mess! If you are a butter lover it may be hard but well worth saving time money and effort if you just cut back a little.