Recently DK and I had an opportunity to visit a Caribou Coffee shop, where I indulged in an impulse purchase (you know, those little items they sell next to the cash register) of old-fashioned caramel. I’m not big on caramel, but I needed a little sugar jolt, so as soon as it was paid for I unwrapped the square, popped half in my mouth and gave the other half to DK.
My eyes went wide – this wasn’t ordinary caramel, it was cinnamon caramel, sticky and buttery with just the right amount of warm spice. It was so delicious, I was determined to recreate this treat in my own kitchen.
So I found a recipe for cinnamon ginger caramels on The Kitchn, a great blog that’s part of the Apartment Therapy series. I also found a post on a fellow food blogger’s site chronicling her attempt at making the very same recipe. Apparently during the first stage of cooking she didn’t let the sugar/water/corn syrup mixture get hot enough, making her caramel nearly runny at room temperature. Well, I wouldn’t be making that mistake. I would push my stove like a professional, bringing that caramel to the terra cotta color the recipe called for.
Twenty minutes later I’m standing in my tiny galley kitchen gagging on the huge puffs of smoke that were billowing from the pot on my stove. “It tastes like burning!” I yelled to DK over the whir of the stove hood. He was busy ripping open windows (during the first week of December) and fanning the black smoke clouds away from our smoke detector.
The timing here was remarkable. It took ten seconds for this caramel to go from perfectly toasted to terribly burned. To make matters worse, I’m not much of a baker or candy maker, so I didn’t know how to deal with the hot sugary mess. Could I pour it down the drain? If I waited for it to cool, would it permanently entomb my pot?
Eventually things settled down. The sugar cooled for a few minutes and then (while it was still syrupy and perilously hot) I did indeed pour it down my sink. Mistake? Time will tell. So far, the sink is still working. But my apartment suffered, smelling like burned sugar for at least 24 hours – after that my nose lost track of the stench, though a stranger surely would have noticed.
But I will not be defeated! Next week my office is doing a Holiday treats week, and I’m signed up to bring in something special for my co-workers on Monday. Can I manage to screw up this recipe twice? More to come!
Em! Cool blog! I didn't know you were doing this. I'm working on one of my own, will let you know when it's all set to go...
xoxo
s
Posted by: Sarah Van Nostrand | December 12, 2008 at 08:19 PM