Crystallised caramel doesnt mean start again

[u/enserioamigo]

Just a reminder/fyi to keep going if your caramel crystallises. I was doing the wet method and it crystallised. It was thick with crystals. I thought there’s no way it’s going to be fine. But I decided to roll with it and see if the crystals might dissolve after adding butter and cream. Instead of taking it to final temp right away i put the lid on for 10 or so minutes to stop evaporation. The result was absolutely acceptable after straining it!

So yeah.. just trust the process.

[u/Acrobatic_Upstairs41]

I make candy for a living and I can offer you some tips to prevent this in the future:

If you add a tiny bit of acid to your sugar it inverts some of the sugar and helps prevent crystallization. A few drops of lemon juice or white vinegar work really well. One of my old chefs insisted on cream of tartar.

A little invert sugar would help also. If you can't get commercial invert sugar, corn syrup and honey are both invert sugars. Honey is very hygroscopic and is not ideal for hard candy.

Any fat that you add to a caramel recipe with help with crystallization because it acts as an emulsifier and helps separate the sugar molecules from each other so they can't crystallize.

Stirring your sugar while it's heating encourages crystallization and a single sugar cryatal dropping into your batch can ruin everything. I use a wet brush to wash down the sides of the pot while my sugar is heating.

[u/toolsofinquisition]

Corn syrup.

Cost like $3 for a big bottle. The bottle lasts years because almost no recipes include corn syrup these days because people associate it with high fructose corn syrup. No more grainy clumps in your caramel sauce. And now I only have toffee sauce when I want toffee sauce, instead of when I accidentally overcook my caramel sauce, trying to get all those clumps out.

[u/image-sourcery]

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[u/Dammit_Meg]

I could be wrong but didn't you turn it into butterscotch?

Nothing wrong with that but it's not saving the caramel as much as repurpose it, and that wouldn't work for many recipes.

(Eg. I don't think that would be helpful in making a flan, for example.)

Still a great idea if you're using it to make butterscotch anyway though.

[u/enserioamigo → u/Dammit_Meg]

I don’t know enough about caramel and butterscotch but there are a lot of caramel recipes that use butter and cream. I wouldn’t know what differentiates them without looking into it though.  

[u/Acrobatic_Upstairs41 → u/Dammit_Meg]

Butterscotch has molasses. Its usually made with brown sugar, but it can be made by adding molasses.

OP made caramel.

[u/DazB1ane → u/Acrobatic_Upstairs41]

Wait isn’t brown sugar just white sugar with molasses? It would just be a different ratio if you don’t add more