Obama Caramels: Like the Man Himself. Risky, And Well Worth the Wait.

They turned out great. Warm, dark, complex, spicy, smooth. You could smell and taste the coconut, but it was blended with everything else perfectly. I didn't even bother adding sea salt, it wasn't necessary.

Coconut milk effing WORKS, by the way.

I also broke in my new Mauviel copper pot (if you live in Seattle and you have a kitchen, go to City Kitchens, particularly during a sale but any time works). Their unlined copper pots were 50% off.

If you would like an Obama caramel, post your address within the next three days and I'll mail one to you.

So pretty.

Caramels, Intermission: Caramels for Obama

This morning, I am going to attempt Obama Caramels. Ingredients will include coconut milk, palm sugar, a mix of spices (ginger, star anise, coriander, cloves, cinnamon, a bay leaf). Some spices will soak in the boiling cream, some will go straight into the sugar mixture.

The trick will be whether coconut milk mixed with heavy cream will work. It changes the protein to sugar ratio, and I don't really know what that will do.

I thought of this recipe while in the shower. Make of that what you will.

In the meantime, I keep putting Santogold, L.E.S. Artistes, on repeat and dancing around my apartment when I'm not checking the candy thermometer. It works well for this recipe. I think she sounds like Martha Davis, from way back before you were born, kids.

Caramels, Part V: I Am Bewildered With Multiplicity.

O Marvelous! what new configuration will come next? I am bewildered with multiplicity.
- William Carlos Williams, At Dawn, 1914

It takes time to take things in, integrate information, let it blend together with other things, simmer slowly until it reaches the right temperature.

More research.

I went to Whole Foods and stood in the baking section for nearly an hour, reading labels and taking notes. Honey, Agave, Yacon, Fig Syrup, Apple Syrup, Rapadura, Sucanat, Cane Syrup, Barley Malt Syrup... there's a lot to experiment with.

How would these different sugars behave differently in caramels?

So I made another dark batch using Rapadura and added raw Colorado wildflower honey instead of maple syrup in a slightly larger proportion. This time I took them off the stove at 238 degrees. They came out very soft, like taffy, but I figured that was better than too hard (um, this sounds more and more like food p*rn, but how else can I say it?) I could only hope that a little time sitting on a marble slab might firm them up a bit.

So I let them sit awhile, then wrapped some up and mailed some to Richard (along with his Weeds DVD's).

Here is an excerpt from his review:

Wow.... Honestly, I wouldn't change a thing. I think the texture / firmness was perfect: firm enough to not be sticky, but not firm enough to make me fear that it might pull off fillings. The flavor was rich and complex. It almost teeters over the line of tasting too dark / burnt, but doesn't actually cross that line at all.
The salt was sublime, both in taste, texture and quantity.

This, from a man whose cooking makes me murderously jealous, whose emails about cooking make me drool, was high praise indeed.

And it made me think I might be onto something.

Caramels, Part IV: Are You There, Caramel? It's Me, Margaret.

That first batch tasted like the darkest corner of heaven, when the candles sputter out for a moment from the wind produced by angels wings and all you can taste is the dark whisper of the heat left behind. They tasted so good it scared me.

So I made a second batch. This time, because I am constitutionally averse to doing anything the same way twice, I used Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Evaporated Cane Juice, Lundberg Farms Rice Syrup, a little bit of maple syrup, and added a small scoop of French gray sea salt. I waited impatiently while they cooled.

This batch had come out softer and golden blond. They looked more like caramels. And they tasted like, well, if you took the same heavenly candles from before, and this time refined their warmth, and put it on your tongue and let it melt, that's what they tasted like.

In short, they both tasted, well, better than the bad poetry they inspired. And far, far better than any caramel I have ever tasted, ever. EVER.

Ever.

Caramel, Part III: If It's Poison, Here's a Hint. Don't Eat It.

Back to the history.

Most books and experts on starting small businesses will tell you that doing research before you start is really important. And it is. But at this point around a month ago I wasn't thinking about starting a business making caramels, I was just interested in learning how to make them in the first place.

I read literally dozens of caramel recipes and articles about the science of caramel. Caramel is made from some chemical magic that occurs between sugar and the protein in milk, called the Maillard reaction. Most of the recipes (including the one in the previous link) called for various combinations of the following list of ingredients: white sugar, corn syrup, condensed sweetened milk, and butter. Some of them skip the butter. Some call for heavy cream. One rare example suggested using brown sugar. A few add sea salt to make the more haught-sounding "sea salt caramels." I tried a few more batches before Paul and Elda took pity on me, but none of them worked.

However, I couldn't get past the fact that most of them used refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup. I like to make healthy food. I like slow food, locally grown, organic, raw, food with lots of living enzymes and animal fats in it. My food bible is Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and The Diet Dictocrats. An embarrassingly iconoclastic title, but that should be enough to tell you that I can get kind of worked up about food.

So at this point, after ruining several batches and being faced with the possibility that caramel might not work with healthier ingredients, I was ready to quit this caramel business before it even started.

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)

If even a single scientific study shows that something kills rats, I'm just not eating it. ( It also, according to several studies, makes you fat, causes diabetes, is mostly made with genetically modified corn, and other wonderful things) It's also manufactured in an absolutely disgusting way. The most charitable thing I have read about high fructose corn syrup is that it's a cheap alternative to refined sugar which is also very bad for you.

But I had to face facts. Although I blamed my caramel disaster on the lack of a thermometer, it very well could have been a result of the unorthodox ingredients I was using. However, now that I knew what generally went into caramel, I wasn't going to eat it unless I made it myself, and I didn't think that was really an option. So I decided to make my next batch of caramels using what I felt were better, healthier ingredients, and risk another disaster, rather than use refined sugar and HFCS.

Using the thermometer this time, using Rapadura, some Billington's Molasses Sugar, a touch of Organic Maple Syrup, Vanilla, Heavy Cream and Butter, I cooked a new batch to 254 degrees.

It came out dark. Very, very dark. And they were harder than I wanted them to be. It didn't look like caramel, frankly and I had already resigned myself to disappointment.

And then I tasted it.

Caramel, Part II: If You're Going To Fail, Fail Spectacularly.

I'm cavalier with recipes. But sometimes in the kitchen, as in life, this will get you bitchslapped.

Though I managed to produce an interesting but impractical slurry, as caramel it was a complete and utter disaster. I confess I was just trying to eyeball it and guess when the mixture bubbling on the stove was hot enough to be caramel, which I can testify does not work, so don't try it.

Perhaps there are caramel masters sitting high atop mountains who can make caramel without a thermometer. I am not one of them.

I am often the object of the charity of my friends Paul and Elda, and in this case, after listening to me complain and probably to shut me up, they gave me a spare candy thermometer, and also a high quality steel loaf pan which I used to cool subsequent batches.

And then, somewhat more humble, I went back to the computer and did some research.

This Might Be A Mistake. Seriously.

What inspired this blogging thing was a combination of my friend Jessica, a fantastic writer of comedy and satire, who wanted to share a blog (and may ultimately join me here), and my friend Richard, chef extraordinaire, who has been working hard to make me swoon with his emails that I affectionately refer to as "food p*rn".

So I figured I would write some of my own food p*rn and share it more widely, probably post some of Richard's (with permission, of course), as well as review some of the weirder aspects of my life and see if I can make more sense of it in public, since it sure seems totally normal in the privacy of my own head but I am assured, by the few who know me well, that it is not.

This might be a mistake, in other words. But here goes.

Caramel, Part I: I Have Walked a Mile for a Caramel.

I love caramel. Did I say love? I have eaten caramel and left behind the ice cream it came in. I have gotten drunk on rum caramel bread pudding. I have followed caramel around, trying to get it to go on a date with me, until it called me a stalker and got an order of protection and moved to another state.

So here is the story of how I am starting a small business making caramels. It remains to be seen whether it will be successful, but hopefully it will be fun to watch.

Over the holidays, in an Obama-inspired glow, I decided to try my hand at making home-made caramels to give them as gifts. I found a few different caramel recipes, sort of melded them together using alternative (read, unrefined, organic, and as locally-produced as possible) ingredients that I liked, and casually attempted my first batch.

Ha. Ha ha. Sigh.