Apple Pie Caramels

Reduce the apple cider

• Pour apple cider into a 3 quart or larger saucepan and bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat to medium and boil until the apple cider has reduced in volume to roughly 125ml (1/2 cup) and is thick like honey, about 40 minutes.
• Stir occasionally; while this happens you can prepare the butter, pan, and wax paper

Brown the butter

• In a medium saucepan on medium heat, melt the butter and cook it for about 10 minutes. It will go through 2 foaming stages; after the first foaming stage stir constantly. Once you see brown bits forming on the bottom and it smells nutty, the butter is brown. Remove from the heat. Be careful not to use high heat here, as the butter will burn.

  • Ideally you want to use a heavy bottomed saucepan if you have one, that will give you even temperature without hot spots
  • Once the butter is brown, remove from heat and add the cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and 1/4 tsp. salt to bloom the spices.

Prepare your loaf pan

• I prefer to use a 9x4 loaf pan to get taller, thicker caramels like the classic vanilla caramel I personally associate with Halloween. You can really use any size pan, it will modify the thickness of your final caramels.
• It is very important that you line the loaf pan with parchment paper on all sides, this will make it easier to remove the candy once it has cooled and give you a non-stick surface to cut the candies on

Prepare the wrappers

• Cut a sheet of wax paper into around 45 @ 6x4” pieces wrappers.
• You don’t need to be exact or even perfectly square for these to look good; if that bothers you, use a cutting mat, a knife, and a ruler.

Make the caramel

• In the saucepan that has the apple cider, add the butter, cream, and both sugars and stir until homogenous
• Over medium heat, slowly bring this up to temperature; you don’t want to overshoot your target temperature, so take it slow.

• There’s a range of textures you can achieve here based on what you like. I prefer the soft, chewy caramel stage around 250°F.

  • 230°–240°F: very soft, melt in your mouth caramels that need to firm up in the fridge before slicing (like inside a Twix)
  • 240°–250°F: soft, chewy caramels (like a vanilla caramel)
  • 250°–265°F: firm, chewy caramels that will stick in your teeth (like a Tootsie Roll)

  • 270°F: hard candy, like a Werthers, will not be sliceable once cooled, and you should use a mould to make these

  • If you don’t have a digital thermometer, you can use a bowl of ice water to assess the finished texture of your candy. Use a spoon to to remove a small amount of the hot caramel and drop into a glass of ice water. It will immediately firm up. This is what the finished texture of the candy will be if you take it off the heat at this stage. Keep doing this until you get to your desired texture.
  • Once you achieve your desired texture, pour the caramel into your prepared loaf pan

Cool and slice

• Place the loaf pan in the fridge and cool the caramels slightly, until firm but still tacky; add flakey salt (optional but highly recommended)
• Allow to cool fully in the fridge; they will be much easier to slice when very cold (do not freeze)
• Using the parchment paper as handles, remove from the loaf pan and place on a cutting board
• Rub a knife or bench scraper in a neutral flavoured oil, like grape seed oil, and slice the caramels into 1” wide columns. If at any point the caramel sticks, wash your knife, rub with oil, and resume.
• Repeat going the opposite direction, cutting into 1” wide rows; you should have 45 cubes that are 1x1x1”, but you can make these whatever size you prefer.

Wrap the candies

• Place a 6x4” piece of wax paper in front of you, place a caramel 1” down from the top
• Fold the short side of the wax paper around the caramel to fully encase it
• Pinch, then twist the sides of the caramel to wrap them; only twist once or twice – if you twist tightly you will tear the wax paper.
• Flatten out the edge to create the classic candy wrapper shape.

These will keep at room temperature for several weeks, since sugar is a natural preservative

Clean-up

• Fill the saucepan that had caramel in it with water and bring it to a boil, then allow it cool; this will dissolve the sugar and it will be easy to wash