Friday, November 30, 2018

When life gives you... crystals?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m trying to work out some of my candy recipes. Since I have lots of rum left over from making rum truffles, I decided to try one of my older recipes - buttered rum caramels.
This recipe was very “hit or miss” when I was originally working with it. It was a recipe I found on the internet somewhere. When it worked, it was amazing. When it didn’t, it was weird, crystallized, fudge-like stuff. I was hoping that with my years of practice with caramel, I might be more consistently successful now.    
Definite nope.
Mmmm. Crunchy.
This was a different version of “didn’t work” than any of the previous ones. There were small puddles of caramel interspersed with crystallized pieces. It tasted pretty danged good, but that texture. Ugh. At first, it seemed like a complete waste. But then, I had an idea. I scraped the mess into a saucepan, mixed in some heavy cream, and simmered it until it was a smooth, thick caramel sauce. It is AMAZING over vanilla ice cream.
Mmmm. Creamy.
It feels like this could be some deep symbolic moment, you know? Sort of a reflection of how things are going in my life right now. Currently, life feels like a frustrating wreck, but I’m trying to create something good out of it anyway. “When life crystallizes your caramel, you make caramel sauce.” It doesn’t have the same ring as the old lemons/lemonade adage, but it’s probably more appropriate for a chocolatier.
(By the way, I trashed that recipe and tried another one that worked much better for the actual candy. My testers should be receiving their boxes shortly. Yay!)
Mmmm. Creamy AND crunchy!

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