Honey Caramel

[MagicValley]

In anticipation of collecting my 1st honey later this year, I made an experimental batch of candy.

I used a pound of store-bought honey, a pint of heavy whipping cream, a couple tablespoons of butter, a 1/2 teaspoon of salt and put it in a pot on medium.  Stirring constantly until the mix got to 246f on the candy thermometer.  You must use a candy thermometer, it has metal ballast at the tip to keep the reading from being inaccurate from all the bubbles.

I put the pizza stone in the freezer before getting started, so when the caramel was up to temp, I put some wax paper on the stone and poured the caramel onto it.  After pushing it around to make it uniformly deep, I put the stone and candy in the refrigerator to set the caramel.

I buttered up the knife edge and cut the caramel into bite-size pieces.  Some of the pieces had one edge pressed lightly into kosher salt crystals.  The salt/sweet honey is really a nice flavor.

The next day I had some that was sitting out at room temp and found that the caramel was too soft, it was nearly melted into a puddle.  So I got some excellent milk chocolate, some chocolate chips, and a bar of 60% cacao dark.  I melted the 3 chocolates and a tablespoon of butter together over a double boiler and then dipped the chilled caramel in the chocolate.  Don't you just hate it when you must use chocolate to save a candy experiment?

I put the dipped candy back on the chilled pizza stone and into the fridge.  When set out at room temp, the chocolate was just a little too melty, but the caramel centers were prefect!  Soft, velvety, creamy, with the strong taste of honey.

I'll make another batch this weekend, but this time I'm only using one chocolate, Hershey's Special Dark, mildly sweet.  I taste-tested this chocolate with a bit of un-dipped caramel, and it is a perfect match.

The local candy store sells their homemade stuff for $16 to $18 per pound.  I asked if they had honey caramel, they don't.  My Internet biz has a mailing list with 11,000 customers, so once my girls have filled up a super or two, I can make this candy, put a notice in my newsletter and probably sell more & faster than I can make it.

Cheers!
Greg

[Thymaridas]

I make honey caramel too.

My recipe is simple and fun. In equal volumes, I heat powdered sugar, butter, and heavy cream (edit honey), with appropriate salt depending on volume. It makes a great syrup on pancakes and waffles, if just heated enough to mix ingredients and flow.

Heated to between soft ball and hard ball it makes a great caramel. I give it to the kids at church. At first, they were hesitant because it was wrapped in wax paper and not "store bought," but no more.

Edit: Crazy that I forgot to list the honey. I make this syrup with a honey puff pancake that I found in an old 1920's farm magazine.

[luvin honey]

I'm drooling!

[AllenF]

So when are your internet buddies going to get some???      Buddy.

[MagicValley]

The plan is when the hive has honey for me to rob.  My colony is only a month old, so it will be a while, Buddy.

[iddee]

Thymaridas, your recipe doesn't list honey. Could you edit it, please, if it does use honey.

[Chef Isaac]

It's tough to make candies with honey since honey likes to pull in moisture. That is why a lot of honey candies have some sort of sugar be it cane or HFCS in there. Honey, when it is heated to high temps doesnt act like sugar and doesnt really go through the same stages of sugar cooking.

[jsmob]

So is there a way to have honey turn hard, or firm it up for Carmel type candies? With out adding sugar.