The Science of Caramel

Recently I have been getting into making Caramels. Those soft dark brown delicious squares of heaven.

So I started gathering recipes from around the internet and it is pure anarchy. All of the basic ingredients are the same (Sugar, Invert Sugar, Dairy, Flavoring, and maybe a Stabilizer) but the ratios are completely all over the place and the advice is all over the place.

I bought a few books off amazon but they proved to just be recipe books without any real understanding of what was happening in the dish.

Does anyone have any advice on where to find resources on the making of Caramel?

Bonus question: I have found zero recipes that use flour however every caramel in my grocery store uses some kind of flower such as rice flour. Does any one know why that would be?

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robmcquarrie

Doesn't really answer your question but the best caramels I've ever had were at Manresa and they have the recipe in their cookbook. Worth seeing if your library has a copy. Looks like a 4:5 ratio of sugar to dairy.

addisonstamper

Hey it's a lead and those are always welcome!

Do you remember if they were a one stage or two stage caramel? Meaning taking the caramel to 250 to taking to 300 then adding dairy and back to 250?

robmcquarrie

It wasn't very specific. Something like put all ingredients in a pot and heat until it turns medium brown then pour into a container to cool and cut into pieces. So one stage I guess.

They use glucose syrup as part of the sugar and also add some citric acid.

robmcquarrie

I finally got around to making these Manresa caramels. They taste great but are very hard. You have to suck on them for about 30 seconds before you can chew and they shatter a bit when trying to cut them. Not like the restaurant ones at all.

I assume it's because I took them to too high a temp but I also let them cool on the counter for about 8 hours uncovered (as specified in recipe) in a very dry environment. Would the cooling uncovered step have effected the hardness or just the final temp?