How to keep caramel from hardening prematurely?
Let me be clear: I am NOT making a recipe where I want the caramel to stay soft and gooey. The end result is supposed to be hard like toffee or peanut brittle. But everything I search seems to be for how to keep caramel in a soft and gooey state, so I just want to be clear that's not what I'm after.
I decided to shake up my recipe, by pouring it into holiday-shaped molds instead of breaking apart a giant slab. The problem is my molds will not hold all the caramel at once, so I'll have to mold it in batches.
So can anyone tell me how to keep the remaining caramel from solidifying before I'm ready to pour it? Ideally without turning it into a lump of charcoal?
Best Answer
I'm sorry, but what you are asking for is not possible. Caramel is a hard substance (I mean pure caramel here, not the stuff which has added dairy or acid and never hardens). You cannot even keep it melted the way you can do with water, because its decomposition temperature is lower than its melting temperature - at temperatures at which it is liquid, it is not staying chemically the same, but progressing to charcoal.
So, you have to buy more molds, or make your recipe in several batches. But you can't just keep liquid caramel around until your molds are ready to reuse. This would be breaking the laws of physics.
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How do you keep melted caramel from hardening?
Melt the caramels over low heat, stirring frequently to combine the caramels with the milk and butter. Adding milk and butter to the caramels is what helps to keep the caramel soft after the turtles are finished.Why did my caramel turn out hard?
If the temperature gets too hot and the caramel becomes too hard as it cools, you can put it back in the pan with a couple of tablespoons of cold water to try and save it.How do you fix hardened caramel?
If caramels are too hard, you can try placing them back in a saucepan, adding a couple tablespoons of water and stirring until the thermometer reads 242\xb0F. Pour back into a prepared buttered pan. If caramels are too soft, that means the temperature didn't get high enough.How do you keep caramel from setting?
To help prevent the caramel from crystallizing, you can add an acid to the sugar before you begin: add about half a tablespoon of lemon juice to each cup of sugar and mix it with your hands; it should be the consistency of wet sand.What To Do When Your Caramel Crystallizes | Teaching Cooking Online
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Answer 2
Use two pots. As long as you haven’t caramelised the sugar, just turn down the heat on one and use the other saucepan to finish the batch you are working on.
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