Salted Caramels - ooOOOOOoooh!

First off, let me start by saying I've never been a huge caramel fan. It's usually over-the-top sweet for me and hurts my teeth. Yet everyone calls me crazy for not liking it. I want to like it, I really do. It LOOKS really great. Especially when people put salt on it. I'm a huge sucker for the salty/sweet combo. So when I ran across this recipe at Flour it Devour it, I thought it might be time for me to attempt caramels. I like that the recipe does not use corn syrup, but rather honey. I LOVE love honey, and thought the flavor would really lend itself to caramel. Also, there's vanilla. Double yum. So I went about trying out this recipe, with just very slight modifications.

Thank you instagram for making my crappy photography look any kind of acceptable. Hopefully.

Salted Caramels

1 &1/2 cups vanilla sugar
1/2 cup raw honey
1/2 vanilla bean
1/2 cup salted butter, chopped into small cubes
1 cup heavy cream
Sea salt for sprinkling

So I started with raw honey and organic cane sugar. I used vanilla sugar that I made (it's easy, just chop up some vanilla bean, scrape it into the sugar, then throw it all into an air-tight canister, scraped out beans included, and the flavor infuses into the sugar. SUPER good). Pour the honey over the sugar and let it melt on a medium to low-ish heat. I also scraped an extra half of a vanilla bean into the mix, because hey, I love vanilla. Do not stir the sugar! Stirring may cause it to crystallize. If you need to do something because you just can't stand it, swirl around the pan a little, but please refrain from stirring. I know it's difficult.

While the sugar is melting in the honey, heat up the cream, bringing it to a simmer.

When the sugar is melted, and it's a beautiful golden brown color, add in the pieces of butter and whisk until it's all melted in and smooth. 

Once the mixture is smooth, slowly add in the heated cream and whisk together. The mixture will foam up a lot, so be careful. Let the mixture cook until it reaches 248°F. 

When the caramel reaches 248°F, pour it into a pan that has been lined with parchment paper. I used a 13x9 quarter sheet pan. Once it's cooled a bit (10-15 minutes), sprinkle the sea salt over the pan. 

After the caramel has cooled to stiffness, cut it into whatever size or shapes you like. I cut mine into pieces about an inch and a half long, and half an inch wide, then wrapped them in parchment paper. Viola! Delicious, creamy caramels with tones of honey and vanilla and a hint of salt. YUM!

Tartlet is BACK!

As you hopefully know from following Tartlet on Facebook, I closed down my shop for the month of July. My boyfriend and I took a pretty long roadtrip/camping vacation the first couple of weeks of July, and when we got back I needed to focus on some house projects. But I have returned! Yay!

Allow me to bore you with vacation pictures for a moment :)

A beautiful lake in Nemo, South Dakota

Gorgeous view from Needles Highway in the Black Hills National Forest

Man and dog being scoundrels in Four Mile, South Dakota

Devils Tower, Wyoming

Shell Falls in Big Horn, Wyoming

I have many more, but I won't get too carried away. We had an amazing time, and I was also able to meet most of Kris's family (they live in Wyoming), which was great. 

BUT NOW I'M BACK! And baking with a vengeance. I have a couple of new items that I plan to put up in the Etsy shop in the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out!!

Small update on working with Cafe Pascal: we are no longer working together because we had some differences of opinion on some issues. The main issue being he didn't want to pay me for my baked goods. Oh well... 

Macaron Success!

I did it! Finally I've got macarons DOWN! It took me a few tries, but I've finally got a recipe/strategy that works for me. Those little suckers are kind of a pain in the patoot! At 9:30 last night, after a hardcore fail of an experiment with liquid egg whites (those bastards would not peak!), I finally got an amazing batch of macarons.

BEHOLD!

They all came out perfectly smooth on top, with beautiful feet, and they're light and fluffy inside. I'm so ecstatic, you don't even know. 

The Recipe and Method I Used

(Of course I don't have pictures to illustrate each step because I am a dingleberry, and honestly I was losing faith.)

1 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup almond meal
2 egg whites (aged a day or two is best)
a pinch of cream of tartar
a little less than 1/4th cup granulated sugar

Toss the powdered sugar and almond meal in a food processor and pulse it for..ehhhh... 30 seconds or so. get it all mixed up and fooiiine. Sift that stuff twice. TWICE. Do it.

Beat the egg whites on a lower to medium speed until frothy then throw the pinch of cream of tartar in there. Beat on a medium speed for another minute or so, until it's almost a soft-ish peak stage and then add the granulated sugar. I tend to use just a little less than 1/4th a cup of the sugar because it seems to make the cookies just a little more delicate? I dunno, I could be fooling myself.

Beat on a medium speed for a couple minutes and then... Beat them eggs on high! Beat em! Probably for 4-6 minutes. Until stiffish peak stage. One problem I had was OVER beating the eggs. I didn't even know you could really do that, but I guess so.

Sift the almond/sugar mix into the egg mix and slowly fold it together. It'll end up kinda shiny and cool.

Put the mixture into a piping bag - I use a 1/2 inch round tip, and start piping! Pipe in small rounds then let them sit out for a few minutes to settle and let a bit of a skin develop. This helps to keep them from cracking in the oven.

I baked mine at 325 for 12 minutes, turning the pan halfway through, and that turned out to be the best method for me. Some people bake on higher temps, or start out high then turn the oven down. You might have to play around with that until you find what works with your oven.

Voila! Macarons!

Check out my Etsy shop if you'd like to purchase some!