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”
I also “liked” the Dexas Facebook page.
I love my immersion blender – so great for making creamy soups and getting the lumps out of gravy. It also has a whisk attachment I use for making whipped cream.
Love a Spoonula. Next would be a good quality knife. We are a house of foodies, and one son manages a restaurant, so we love our gadgets!
I go through phases, but right now my favorite is my microplane grater. I use it for zesting, small bits of cheese, even grating gralic real small so no one gets a hue piece when they take a bite (not that I would mind, but some people….)
I am now going to try caramel. Thanks for breaking it down. 🙂
Great tips…and this sounds so yummy! Can’t wait to try it. My favorite kitchen tool is an old fashioned pastry cutter. I have had it for years, and wouldn’t part with it! It’s old and plain…kind of like me, but it works so well I wouldn’t think of using anything else.
Yum caramels!!! Please count me in for the giveaway.
Love your blog and love this recipe…will definitely try it as autumn here in New Hampshire and at our inn is filled with favors of the fall like pumpkin, squash, apples etc. My favorite kitchen tool is a wooden handled butter spreader with a bit of a serrated edge. Great for spreading cranberry mayo on sandwiches, putting on a cheese plate etc. I’ve had it for years and find it very useful!!
Cyndi, please write me and tell me where I can purchase a wooden handled butter spreader. My son brought one back from Sweden some years ago, and it has vanished. I would really love another one.
denisecott@yahoo.com
I LOVE my Pampered Chef potato masher! It makes mashing so much easier!
I liked Dexas.
My favorite kitchen tool are long chopsticks – long enough so that I won’t get burned, easy to pick up stuff, can stir with them – the possibilities are endless!
NUM I had never though of adding a flavor like pumpkin to caramels!
My favorite kitchen tool is my le creuset small french oven that I found at a moving sale for $5. So awesome for making soup and stew (and often, cheese sauces).
This is going to sound silly, but my favorite kitchen tool is actually just the first high-quality knife my boyfriend got me for Christmas last year. I never understood why someone would want to spend a sizable chunk of change on a knife, but wow can I feel the difference! (For the record, it’s this Kyocera ceramic knife. And it’s pink. And I love Ming!)
Thanks for the caramel tips and giveaway — please count me in!
I liked Dexas and am now following them on Twitter!
The first thing that came to mind when you asked what our favorite kitchen utensil is was my garlic press. It may be a more “boring” utensil, but it is probably the most used (and most loved!). I LOVE garlic, and will find any excuse to use it or try it in a recipe. What I don’t love is mincing garlic on my own, so I almost always press it. Easy, fast and gets the job done! I also like to believe that pressing the garlic makes the flavor come out just a little bit more.
I have a kitchen full of amazing tools. I agree with Sarah. The garlic press is one of my “must haves”. My, “grown up”, daughter agrees! She is accumulating things for her first “no room mate” apartment. She has very few kitchen items. She , only, asked to take 3 kitchen tools – the garlic press, a good saute pan, and the chopper.
And I just liked Dexas on Facebook! I’m thinking of picking up a purple spoonula from them as a kitchen warming gift to myself when it’s done!
I’m now following Dexas on Twitter
Right now, I’d just be happy to have a kitchen again (I’m gutting and renovating my house). But when I had a kitchen and baked a lot I used a spoonula for everything. I remember when I first saw a spoonula, I thought ‘that is the best idea ever!’. It’s perfect for scraping bowls and folding ingredients into batter.
I want to make caramels and now I have tips. Thanks!