London Fog Caramel Sauce

If you follow my blog, you know that I have somewhat of a healthy obsession with caramel sauces. You would think that with the few basic ingredients you need to make a good caramel sauce, you would be limited with how much you can play with the classic sauce. However, like with everything in the kitchen, the only limit is your imagination. I love to play around with the basic caramel recipe and tweak it to add an extra flavor note or a different texture or both. Today's caramel sauce features the simple ingredients you need to make a London Fog Tea, sounds interesting, no?

For other caramel recipes, you can try my salted caramel sauce, or how about my spicy and sweet caramel recipe?

The London fog caramel sauce stands out with its floral and citrusy notes, thanks to the Earl Grey tea and the dried lavender flowers. The result is a caramel sauce with a balanced sweet flavor and complex flavor notes.

Let´s make the sauce
For the tea you need:

• 1 earl grey tea bag (use 2 bags for a more intense flavor)
• 50 ml boiling water
• 1 tsp dried lavender petals (adjust to you liking)

In a cup, put the tea bag and the lavender then add the boiling water and let it steep and then cool.

For the caramel sauce:

• 50 ml of the prepared tea
• 120 g sugar
• 50 g cold butter cut into cubes
• 200 ml heavy cream
• pinch of salt (needed to bring out the flavors)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract or paste 

Put the sugar in a saucepan and melt over a gentle heat. Once the sugar is golden brown add the steeped tea  and let it boil for few seconds. Always be careful when adding liquid to a hot caramel as it will splatter. Add the cold butter and let it melt. Add the salt and the cream.
Cook for a few minutes until it thickens. Finally add the vanilla and whisk well

Lift the saucepan off the stove and allow the caramel sauce to cool down.

Pour the sauce in a clean jar and refrigerate, if you will not use it within the day of its making.

Like all caramel sauces, you can use it in so many ways. It is such a useful ingredient to keep in your fridge. It complements pancakes, crepes and sponge cakes perfectly. You can add it to cheesecakes to add a new flavor dimension, or you can use it as a sweet dipping sauce with fruits, biscuits and much more.

You can find here, here, here, here and here many recipes I've shared before with caramel sauces.

Make your own caramel sauce and use it the way you want, it will only enhance your baking and make it more scrumptious.

Salted Caramel Candies, a Great Gift this Christmas!

With this post we will continue the series of festive recipes. However, this is a special recipe since it requires only 4 main ingredients to end up with something really impressive!

If you follow my blog you would know that I do love a good caramel. Added in the right amounts, caramel transforms ordinary sweets into spectacular ones. What if caramel is not one of the elements of a recipe but is the actual hero of it? Well that's what this caramel candies recipe is all about.

Following the recipe specified in this post you will get around 21 pieces of candy. I should specify that I used an 8 x 16 cm cake pan. I trimmed the edges of the caramel and cut it into 2 x 3 cm candies.
The only difficulty in this recipe is to get to the right temperature as to have a set caramel but that is not rock solid and to attain this temperature you do need a thermometer. It sounds a bit technical and it kind of is, but these cooking thermometers are widely available nowadays at fairly reasonable prices.

Now, let´s caramel:

• 200 g sugar
• 150 g cream (35%)
• 40 g cold butter
• 1/2 tsp sea salt or fleur de sel

In a heavy bottom pan add the sugar and let it melt over a gentle heat. Cook the sugar until you get an amber color and you can smell the distinctive caramel aroma. Slowly pour the cream taking extra care not to splatter any of the hot sugar on you.
Continue cooking the caramel for at least 10 minutes and over a gentle heat. The mixture needs to get to 125C (257 F) and when it does, turn off the heat and add the butter whisking well until it  is well combined. Finally add the salt and whisk again for a bit.

Pour the caramel in the parchment covered pan and leave it to cool. Place the pan in the fridge for an hour or two. 

Remove the pan from the fridge. Take the caramel out of the pan and cut it into 2 x 3 cm rectangles. For an extra hit of salt, you can sprinkle a touch of sea salt on the caramel pieces or over the caramel slab before you cut it.

Wrap the candies in wax paper or candy plastic wraps and share them with your loved ones as a special and homemade gift for Christmas.