These Sea Salt Caramels are THE BEST CARAMELS ever. Rave reviews by EVERYONE who has tried them and LOTS of trial and error to create the perfect caramels!
The talented inventor, Thomas Edison created the light bulb, an invention that we can hardly imagine life without these days.
However, before he was successful, he failed 1,000 times.
When asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times”, Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”
Though I am in no way Thomas Edison, being a recipe developer often feel like to have success with some recipes, you first have to have a lot of failures.
These caramels are the BEST DANG CARAMELS on the planet.
How do I know this?
Because it took me 9 batches to find the perfect recipe.
Can you imagine 9 batches of caramels?
That’s over 900 pieces of caramels and a whole lot of wrapping.
I was DETERMINED to create the BEST caramel recipe and in order to do so there was A LOT of trial and error.
As crazy as it sounds to have someone make 9 batches of caramels, what makes it EXTRA crazy is that I did all 9 batches in a 4 week period.
Batch after batch, wrapped caramel after caramel.
Everyone who met us, knew us or looked at us was offered a caramel, if not a bag of them.
We passed these on to my daughters teachers (multiple batches) as well as everyone from church as well as neighbors and friends.
You may be asking how difficult can a recipe with 4 ingredients really be, and I’m here to tell you very.
Figuring out the right balance of ingredients was the easy part. The difficult part (and main reason for so many batches) was the temperature.
How long do I cook these?!
We made caramels at 240*F, 242*F, 243*F and 244*F.
I wanted a caramel that wasn’t too sticky and would pull out a cavity and wasn’t too hard that it would break a tooth.
Something that was rich in flavor and the right amount of chew.
In the end, I figured out the exact ingredients, the best process (cue a few boil over messes) and the right temperature.
Whew. Talk about a crazy few weeks of caramels.
If that wasn’t crazy enough I also decided to do several variations of caramels once I got the recipe figured out!
The funny thing is that I wasn’t going to do caramels for the website at all.
I love them but always felt that they were going to be difficult to make.
This is why I’ve stuck to my microwave caramel version instead.
However, thanks to my friend Nate since he’s the one who got me into the caramel making business!
Overall we are in LOVE with this recipe.
Yes it’s time consuming but HOLY GUACAMOLE is it worth every single minute!
If you are a fan of caramels and want to try the best dang caramels on the planet, then give these Sea Salt Caramels a try!
Sea Salt Caramels
These Sea Salt Caramels are THE BEST CARAMELS ever. Rave reviews by EVERYONE who has tried them and LOTS of trial and error to create the perfect caramels!
Ingredients
- 2 cups white sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup white Karo syrup
- 3 cups heavy whipping cream
- Candy thermometer or digital thermometer. I prefer a digital meat thermometer.
- 1 Tablespoon coarse sea salt
Instructions
- Line a 9x13 casserole dish (for thicker caramels) or a jelly roll pan (for thinner caramels) with parchment paper that you spray with cooking spray or nonstick foil. Make sure liner comes up over the edges of the pan on all sides.
- In a LARGE pot mix sugar, salt, corn syrup and whipping cream.
- Clip a candy thermometer onto the pan if your pan allows. If not, you'll have to check the temperature regularly with your thermometer then rinse it off after each time.
- Cook caramel mixture over medium heat (I like to cook mine at a 7.5 level on my stove) until caramel reaches 241*F. Caramel should cook at a heavy simmer / boil and will double, if not triple, in volume from the bubbles.
- Stir caramel mixture every few minutes to prevent from scorching the bottom of the caramel.
- The mixture will come to 218*F pretty quickly, so don't panic. Between 218*F - 241*F will take a little while.
- As you cook and stir, the caramel will start off white, then a light caramel then eventually a rich caramel color.
- Once caramel reaches 241*F, remove from stove.
- Pour mixture into prepared pan and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
- Allow to cool for 1 hour or more, until caramel has set.
- If caramel is still sticky when cutting, it's still slightly warm in the center. Caramel should cut without sticking to knife.
Notes
I have made these using a 9x13 casserole dish as well. Your caramels will be thicker so cut them smaller. Line pan with non-stick foil or cooking spray as directed.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
50Serving Size:
4Amount Per Serving: Calories: 102Total Fat: 5gSaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 18mgSodium: 142mgCarbohydrates: 13gFiber: 0gSugar: 11gProtein: 1g
Aunt Charley
Monday 16th of April 2018
I’m confused. You say cook at medium heat. Later you say as caramel is simmering. I’ve always thought simmering was over low heat, yet you don’t mention changing cooking temperature. I don’t want to spend hours of my time and expense of ingredients til I know what I’m doing. Thanks in advance for help on this.
Janelle
Monday 16th of April 2018
Hi Aunt Charley! Great question! I've adjusted the recipe to reflect that it is a heavy simmer / low boil. Each stove cooks at slightly different temperatures so you'll have to play with the temperature to get a low boil / heavy simmer. For my stove that is at a 6.5 - however some stoves don't even have numbers! If the heat is too high the mixture will boil over the pan. If it's too low it will take longer to reach your desired temperature. However as you can see from the photo you want a nice constant low boil. Adjust your temperature until you get that. But once you find a good temperature for a low boil you wont have to touch it again. I hope that helps!