A few days ago I tried making salted caramel sauce based on the recipe by Brown-Eyed Baker. Well, to say that it was not successful is some kind of understatement of the year.
As you can see all had been going well. I had my ingredients (you can see my dog's butt in the first picture. =P) and I was all ready to cut my butter into cubes as mentioned in the recipe. But the thing was, I hadn't copied down the steps after the recipe and when I wanted to try it out, I couldn't access the website! I was almost in a state of panic. And then I thought, oh, there are plenty of other sites. I researched those that required heavy creams (a lot of them used water to melt the sugar and let it brown). I tried it and it looked so delicious! So I let it cook and cook and cook. Until it was the beautiful brown color all the sites I researched on looked like. You could see that I stopped taking pictures because 1)The camera was banging against my counter top and the stuff I was using, which can't be good for the camera. 2)All the sites said that I need to keep a super close eye on my brew, taking pictures was distracting me =X
Finally it turned the beautiful color, I poured it out into a bowl. To my horror, as I was cleaning up some of the bowls and such, the leftovers in the pot started to solidify and harden! I was so hoping that it was because of the amount but I checked the bowl, the sides started to harden. =( All my hard work! I quickly asked my dad for help and he said "Let's make candy then!". Ok, those who know my dad know that he doesn't talk like that, but his suggestion was genius. So we got down to it, and here is the result.
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As you can see all had been going well. I had my ingredients (you can see my dog's butt in the first picture. =P) and I was all ready to cut my butter into cubes as mentioned in the recipe. But the thing was, I hadn't copied down the steps after the recipe and when I wanted to try it out, I couldn't access the website! I was almost in a state of panic. And then I thought, oh, there are plenty of other sites. I researched those that required heavy creams (a lot of them used water to melt the sugar and let it brown). I tried it and it looked so delicious! So I let it cook and cook and cook. Until it was the beautiful brown color all the sites I researched on looked like. You could see that I stopped taking pictures because 1)The camera was banging against my counter top and the stuff I was using, which can't be good for the camera. 2)All the sites said that I need to keep a super close eye on my brew, taking pictures was distracting me =X
Finally it turned the beautiful color, I poured it out into a bowl. To my horror, as I was cleaning up some of the bowls and such, the leftovers in the pot started to solidify and harden! I was so hoping that it was because of the amount but I checked the bowl, the sides started to harden. =( All my hard work! I quickly asked my dad for help and he said "Let's make candy then!". Ok, those who know my dad know that he doesn't talk like that, but his suggestion was genius. So we got down to it, and here is the result.
Ok, seriously I'm ashamed that I only have this picture to prove I *attempted* salted caramel and came out with candy. It looked so beautiful when I laid it out. Oh well, it seems like I can only be contented with this blob of 'the thing'.
So I looked it up and I read up! It was supposed to be a lighter brown than what I let it cook till. Or that my heat was not high enough. These were tips offered by Recipe Girl, stated here.
Well, I'd like to end off with a note, nothing ventured nothing gained. At least now I know. Oh! I forgot, if you're wondering what that yellow stuff in the bowl in first picture is, it's substituted heavy cream. Here's the recipe. I couldn't find any heavy cream in the supermarket, how sad is that. =S
Songs I listened to while I blogged about this:
