Pumpkin Spice Caramels
Classic chewy caramel squares get a pumpkin spice flavor profile. This is one of my favorite fall candies to make!
A lot of people think caramel is hard to make. If this is you, don’t worry, I used to feel totally dumbfounded by caramel too. I tried recipe after recipe but something always seemed to get screwed up. Eventually I discovered what I was doing wrong and since then I’ve realized that caramel is actually very easy as long as you follow some rules. Let’s talk about some of the problems with caramel:
Problem #1: When you start the caramel by putting the sugar, water, and corn syrup in a pan, a little OCD person inside of you says “look at how undistributed those ingredients are, stir it, STIR IT!!!!”
Tell that evil voice to shut up and do not stir it. Otherwise, this will be the death of your caramel before you even began, and your caramel will crystallize and get gritty. Even though the ingredients look undistributed, it will all eventually melt into a very homogenous sugar syrup, like this:
Problem #2: caramel requires patience + human beings are not patient = burned caramel
When you make caramel, you need to watch it. Caramel is a diva, you see. It’s going to take its sweet time getting brown at all, then when you turn your back to the stove for two seconds to get a spoon, it’s practically on fire (okay, I’m exaggerating a little). It’s in our nature to look for shortcuts and do things faster but keep the heat at medium and be patient with it.
After the sugar turns clear, it will start to develop a golden honey amber color, like this:
To make these caramels pumpkin-y, heat up some cream, pumpkin puree, butter, and spices in the microwave:
Give it a good stir and you’ll have a pumpkin cream mixture:
Standing back (it will bubble ferociously), add the pumpkin cream to your amber sugar syrup:
And this brings us to…
Problem #3: You don’t have the right tools.
You can follow all the necessary rules for making caramel but if you don’t start with the proper equipment, your journey to caramel will be rough.
- Use a heavy pan with a thick bottom. If you make your caramel in a super crappy, thin bottomed pan, the bottom layer of your caramel will likely scorch.
- Use an accurate thermometer. You need to cook this to the soft ball stage, to 248 degrees F. There’s no way you can guess that. Spend $20 and get a thermometer if you don’t have one. There are several brands that make some well rated thermometers in the $20 range.
- Use a good spatula that can scrape the bottom of the pan well. Okay, so you’re probably wondering how can you use a spatula if you’re not supposed to stir? After you’ve fortified the caramel with butter and cream, you can stir the caramel without risking crystallization.
Pumpkin Spice Caramels
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup light corn syrup
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 3/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/16 tsp ground allspice
- 1/16 tsp ground ginger
- 1/16 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- good quality sea salt for sprinkling
Instructions
- Line an 8×8 pan with parchment paper.
- Place the sugar, water, and corn syrup in a saucepan (don’t stir it together) and cook over medium heat until amber colored (approximately 10 minutes). Again, don’t stir during this process (you risk crystallizing the caramel), just swirl it gently in the pan if you need to move it around a bit.
- In the meantime, heat the cream, pumpkin puree, butter, salt, and all the spices together until melted, either in a saucepan or in the microwave.
- Once the sugar syrup has turned to an amber color, slowly and carefully pour in the pumpkin cream mixture, being aware that the caramel will bubble up a lot (wear oven mitts if you’re concerned).
- Return the pan to medium heat and cook for about 15 more minutes until it reaches 248 on a thermometer (the soft ball stage), adding the vanilla extract right before it reaches 248. Pour into the parchment lined dish and refrigerate for a few hours until hard enough to cut into squares, then sprinkle the tops with a little bit of sea salt. Enjoy!
Notes
I’ve made this both with an electric stove and a gas stove, and as expected, cooking with a gas stove will go much quicker. Be sure to keep your eye on the caramel.
Nutrition
Nutrition is estimated using a food database and is only intended to be used as a guideline for informational purposes.
Disclosure: This post contains an Amazon affiliate link.
189 Comments on “Pumpkin Spice Caramels”
Can you double the recipe for pumpkin spice caramels?
Can you substitute evaporated milk like carnation for the heavy cream? I am having difficulty getting the heavy cream.
Hello,
I just tried these. They turned out yummy.
I was curious since your adding pure pumpkin do these become perishable?
I would love to send some to family out of state but wasn’t sure if they need to stay refrigerated due to the pumpkin.
Thanks! Have a great day!
cant wait to try
What is the black stuff that’s in the photos? Is it a type of salt? I looked in the comments and the recipe, and I just can’t figure it out!
Hi Charlotte, yes, it’s black lava salt =)
Hi, I’m planning to try these tonight for a pumpkin carving party tomorrow. I notice there are comments about the “gritty” pumpkin texture. Have you ever tried putting the pumpkin through a food mill or similar? I don’t have one (I don’t even have a stand mixer!), but just curious as to whether that would help, or if it’s already finer in texture than that. I just made Earl Grey Caramels last weekend and they were a hit and I can’t wait to try these. I love your pictures and clear directions.
Hi Liz, I haven’t, but I’m not sure that would help (if you try it let us know how it goes). I just don’t think pumpkin will ever be as silky as caramel, so it’s bound to change the texture in exchange for pumpkin flavor. Honestly the texture never bothered me though.
Canned pumpkin “grit”
Just baked pumpkin breads with Libby’s pumpkin. Every other bite has a “crunch to it.
The company says they wash the pumpkins multiple times, and screen the pulp as well but sometimes sand and shell still gets in.
Have you ever noticed this? Any suggestions?
LOVE your site!
Thanks, Karen
Hi Karen, yuck! Shells and sand…not so yummy. The only suggestion I have is to roast and puree your own, which I explain in this post: https://www.fifteenspatulas.com/fresh-vs-canned-pumpkin-i-put-them-to-the-test-my-pumpkin-pie-recipe/ Basically I made two pumpkin pies, one with canned pumpkin and one with fresh pumpkin, and compared the results.
I don’t use corn syrup. I love pumpkin. Are your recipes gluten free? I have to eat gluten free. i would love to make your sweet potato doughnuts too. Bob’s Red Mill has a potato four bread mix. I haven’t tried it yet. I wonder if it would work.
Thank you.
Bev
Hi Beverly, you can certainly make peanut brittle without corn syrup, the texture might be a little different and the corn syrup helps reduce the chance of crystallization, but as long as you don’t stir (just swirl gently if needed), you should be okay.
My recipes aren’t all gluten-free. Some happen to work out that way (and have you seen the gluten free section of my recipe index? That might be a good place to start, it’s fairly big).
I haven’t tried Bob’s Red Mill potato four bread mix…actually I’ve never seen it before! Sounds awesome though. I like Bob’s Red Mill products in general.
How can I tell if my pan is thick enough? I strongly dislike trying recipes and then have them not work because my utensils were not up to par. Is there an obvious way to tell pan thickness and if it will be thick enough for caramel?
Hi Madilyn, do you know what brand and kind of pot you have? As long as it’s stainless steel and not a thin aluminum one you should be fine. The problem with thin pans is the bottom can burn very easily, so if you haven’t noticed any problems with the bottom burning for sauces or caramels, you should be good.