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 love the kitchen shears from Pampered Chef. I bought them 10 years ago, stuck them to the inside of a kitchen cabinet and use them almost every day!
Following on twitter!
I would have to say my KitchenAid mixer is my favorite gadget. I use it so often it is always out!
Definitely couldn’t live without a spoonula, (but have to admit I never knew what it was officially called before). I mean, a spoon AND spatula in one…it just doesn’t get any better than that!
My favorite kitchen tool is my microplane!
I have lots of utensils and I love to try something new. I do have some utensils that I use only rarely but every year, like my food mill when I am canning applesauce and tomatoes. Or my ricer to prep potatoes to make lefse. I treat myself every mothers day with a new knife (I like Wuesthoff) or kettle (I like all-clad) gradually replacing all my original items from the 70’s and 80’s.
I would have to say my favorite utensil is my frosting knife. It is so old, I don’t remember where or when I got it. It has a wooden handle, it is about 5 inches long and a narrow flexible blade. I wash it by hand as I am starting to worry about it’s demise . It puts the perfect swirl into cupcake frosting and dainty touches to the Christmas frosted cut out cookies. I never fail to check the kitchen department when I am at a store, looking for a backup.
I love my gadgets – but my recent favorite toy is my microplane. I love how it can be used for so many things and is quick and easy to use. 🙂
And on twitter. 😉
Oh, it’s purple, not blue. Guess my iPad can’t tell the difference. 🙂
I’m following them on Facebook now!
I have a lot of tools that I use frequently, but the one absolute I couldn’t live without is my chef’s knife. I even use it to peel things that would ordinarily be done with a peeler or paring knife. If it’s in my hand, I use it, and have for 35 years. And thanks for letting us know about Dexa
s. I’m heading over there next to give them a BIG like. Love your site, as well. Going to get brave and try the caramels.
I don’t think I can wait till this contest is over. Those spatulas are a MUST BUY for me! Thanks for telling us about them. Ooh…and they have blue!
Gosh, it’s hard to pick one favorite kitchen tool. I love all my babies! Probably one of the most used items in my kitchen is my 7″ Santoku knife by LamsonSharp. It just feels great in the hand. I can chop anything with that sucker, and it’s a heck of a lot easier to clean than my food processor (which I also love, by the way).
P.S. Those caramels look AMAZING! I’m so trying them!
I am so excited that the pumpkin recipes are coming out~~!!! These look delicious! 🙂
My favorite kitchen tools are the OXO brand, just because of the big handles. I have arthritis, and it makes them much easier to grip on ouchie days. I have several other favorites for other reasons, but these are the ones that allow me to cook on days when I normally couldn’t.
I love spatulas! Before having one, I would use spoons it it’s not even close to spatulas
I love my pink-handled whisk….!
My favorite tool is the flexible cutting boards from Pampered chef. They are colored coded red for meat, yellow for fruit, green for veggies. I use all three at once to prevent cross-contamination. Bend the edges together to shake things directly into the pot. They go in the dish washer. Storing them is easy because they are thinner than traditional cutting boards.