Caramels

While actually making the homemade caramel candy doesn’t take terribly long, it does need several hours to cool so you can slice it neatly. For this reason, I recommend saving this recipe for a day you plan to spend a few hours at home. For more candy recipes to share with friends and family, try my toffee recipe, peanut brittle, and honeycomb recipe.

What You Need to Make this Recipe

Sugar — you need two types for this recipe: granulated sugar (white sugar) and light brown sugar. Corn syrup — corn syrup is important for the soft, smooth texture of these salted caramel candies. Use light corn syrup, not dark corn syrup. Butter — unsalted butter adds richness and creaminess to these homemade candies. Salt — salt enhances all the flavors. If you are using salted butter, reduce the salt by ¼ teaspoon per stick. Heavy cream — also called heavy whipping cream, this is an essential ingredient in the best caramels recipe. You could swap it for evaporated milk if you have that on hand. Vanilla — you need a lot of vanilla, so use a high-quality vanilla extract instead of vanilla essence.

How to Make Caramels

1. Lightly grease a 9×13-inch pan with butter and line it with parchment paper. Allow the excess parchment paper to come up the sides of the pan. Lightly butter the parchment paper as well.
2. Combine white sugar, light brown sugar, light corn syrup, butter, and salt in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. It needs to be a 4- to 5-quart capacity saucepan.
3. Set the saucepan over medium heat and stir constantly until the butter and sugar has melted and the mixture starts to bubble, which will take about 5 minutes.
4. Slowly stir in the heavy cream.
5. Attach a candy thermometer to the saucepan and boil. Stir constantly until the sugar syrup reaches 245°F to 248° degrees f. This step takes 20 to 25 minutes.
6. If you don’t have a candy thermometer, do the cold water test. Drop a small ball of the caramel into a glass of cold water. If it forms a firm yet pliable ball, it is ready. If the caramel dissolves, it is not ready yet.
7. Once the caramel reaches the right temperature, immediately remove the saucepan from the heat and carefully stir in the vanilla extract. Pour the soft caramel mixture into the prepared pan.
8. Allow it to cool completely. It will need about 4 hours. About 30 minutes into the cooling process, you can sprinkle flaked sea salt on the slab of caramel. Once completely cooled, remove the slab from the baking sheet and discard the parchment paper. Cut into squares with a very sharp knife and wrap the chewy caramels in wax paper.

Pro Tips for Making this Recipe

Use a heavy-bottomed saucepan. This will help ensure that the caramel doesn’t burn. Thin pans don’t insulate the food cooking very well and easily burn on the bottom of the pan. Prepare all your equipment and ingredients before you start. Things move along fairly quickly, and the caramel needs constant attention while it cooks. So prepare all your utensils, equipment, and ingredients before you start. You don’t want to be prepping the baking sheet when the caramel is done. Keep a pastry brush and a little water nearby. Sugar crystals may form as the caramel cooks, which can ruin its texture. Wet the pastry brush with water and brush the sides of the pan to dissolve the sugar crystals. Swap out the vanilla extract for the scraped seeds of one vanilla bean or vanilla bean paste. Make sure to separate the caramel squares when cutting. Cut a caramel and move it to another part of your cutting board, or recut them before trying to move them if they are touching. The edges will stick together and create a string if they are touching for too long. Make them first thing in the morning. Since these candies take several hours to cool, I like making a batch in the morning so they have plenty of time to cool at room temperature. Then in the late afternoon, I can cut and wrap. Chill the cooled caramel before slicing. Pop the caramel slab into the fridge for 15 minutes before slicing. They slice a little bit cleaner when the caramel is slightly cool and the knife is a little warm. To speed up the cooling process: You can refrigerate it until hardened or store the slab tightly wrapped in the fridge until you are ready to cut it. Just remove the slab about 30 minutes to 1 hour before slicing, as cold caramel can shatter or break when cut.

If you’ve tried this caramels recipe, then don’t forget to rate the recipe and let me know how you got on in the comments below, I love hearing from you!