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”
These caramels look delicious! I love making caramel, and believe it or not, even though I stir the sugar while it’s dissolving, I always come out with crystal-free caramel.
Which brings me to my favorite cooking tool, and that is a ball whisk. Love, love, love. My favorite is a WMF ball whisk with silicone tipped balls so that I can use it on all of my nonstick pans. It’s amazing for stirring just about anything.
Thanks for the Dexas recommendation, I will definitely have to try one of their kitchen tools.
My favorite kitchen tool is my mandolin.
Oh and my favorite tool in the kitchen has to be my spoonula. I reach for it all the time. It’s great for mixing, scraping, scooping, etc.
Thanks for the heads up on Dexas. I have liked them on FB.
Thank you for the recipe and tutorial. I like the look of your site now so I can’t wait to see the new and improved version.
I now follow Dexas on Facebook
My favorite kitchen tool is anything in the Pampered Chef line. Seriously, I use the mini whisk and the mix and scrape spatulas every day. Having the right tools makes cooking easy and fun.
My favorite tool is my zester. The smell of the citrus always makes me stop and take a deep breath.
I’d have to say a good spatula. I’m a little OCD about the bowl being scrapped clean!
My favorite utensils, like Cyndi and Susan, are my two little serrated spreaders (from Pampered Chef)! The handles are plastic instead of wood, unfortunately, but it doesn’t matter. Two isn’t enough though, I never seem to have one clean and in the drawer when I need it!
my favorite tool is a rubber spatula–the kind that are completely rubber.
My new favorite kitchen tool is the Joseph Joseph Uni-tool, 5-In-1 Utensil. I use it so often, I should hang it from my neck. I always know where to find it… in the dishwasher. It is a slotted spoon, a turner, a solid spoon, a spatula and a cutting tool. It is made from a tough nylon and is heat resistant up to 480 degrees F.
My favorite tool (other then essentials like knives, cutting boards, pans, etc) is a silicon spatula! I can cook, scrape and serve with a rounded one. Plus, I just throw them into the dishwasher. I have many of them sitting in a crock next to my stove so that I can access what ever style I need at the moment. I keep them covered with a plastic bag though because they tend to attract grease! Ugh!
Cyndi, I too have a favorite butter spreader with a wooden handle and is serrated! I absolutely go to that for everything! My mother gave it to me when I moved into my first apartment. She got it from a catalog that you could purchase “points” or something and when you saved up enough, you could buy certain items. I also got my Pfaltzgraff dishes that way.
Susan
My favorite kitchen utensil would definitely be my cutco knives. I use them everyday!
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