Caramel candy. How to make candy at home: caramel lozenges

Step 1: Cook the caramel.

Step 2: Prepare the molds and prepare the lollipops.

Step 3: Serve the finished caramel candies.

Instead of vinegar, you can use citric acid (on the tip of a knife). These ingredients are needed so that the sugar does not crystallize. Be careful when calculating the proportion, if you add too much vinegar or acid, the candy will be too soft, or may not harden at all.

To make it easier to get the lollipops, before opening the mold, slightly heat it on the stove.

You can change the color of the candy with food coloring and the flavor with spices such as cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, or ground ginger.

You can check the readiness of caramel with water. If a drop of caramel turns into a solid non-stick ball in water, then it is ready.

If you do not have candy molds, it does not matter - you can use ordinary tablespoons. The principle of operation is the same - grease with vegetable oil, pour caramel, insert a toothpick and give time to harden.

All small children simply love to eat lollipops, considering this activity the greatest happiness in their lives. Many parents delight their offspring with the purchase of various "chupa chups", but they do not think about what kind of poison they send to the child's body, and what the consequences of such a purchase may be. That is why, if there are kids in the family, then a caring mother should not be lazy, because you can easily make the same “cockerel on a stick” at home. The main thing is to stock up on patience, all the necessary ingredients, free time, good mood and, of course, a proven recipe. How to make sweets at home, so that they not only have a presentable appearance, but also unforgettable taste qualities, thus becoming the “taste of childhood”.

The first recipe is extremely simple to prepare, and to reproduce it at home, you only need 350 grams of granulated sugar and four tablespoons of the most ordinary water from a kettle. So, to make caramel, you need to take a small saucepan, preferably with a double or thick bottom. This is necessary so that the sugar does not burn on fire and subsequently does not have a bitter taste, while reaching the desired consistency. When the desired container is selected, then pour all the granulated sugar into it according to the recipe and put on moderate heat. You can’t leave the pan anywhere, because after a few minutes the sugar will begin to noticeably melt. It is extremely important to constantly stir it and do not remove it from low heat until it turns into a homogeneous mass of a brown hue.

After about ten minutes, remove the half-cooked caramel from the heat and carefully add four tablespoons of water to it, as the recipe says, while stirring well until all lumps have completely disappeared. For these purposes, it is best to use a wooden spoon, and if bumps form, melt them additionally over low heat for a couple of minutes, while the caramel should not burn and change its color. As soon as the resulting mass becomes homogeneous, you can pour it into special molds to create sweets, or independently sculpt original and symbolic figures to further decorate dessert dishes. As a rule, the shape and size of sweets depend solely on the imagination of each hostess and, of course, the free time that she has. That's all, the joy of the children is ready.

However, there is another simple recipe for how to make caramel at home. To prepare it, you will definitely need three tablespoons of granulated sugar, a spoonful of vegetable oil and a couple of dessert spoons of lemon juice. Of course, lemon concentrate can be replaced with water (many do), but its use gives the finished candy an original taste. So, put the indicated amount of sugar in a pan and turn on medium heat. Constantly stir it with a wooden spoon until the caramelized mass becomes liquid and homogeneous. After that, carefully pour in the required amount of lemon juice, avoiding steam burns, and also mix well, timely preventing the appearance of lumps and tubercles from caramel. In this way, add vegetable oil for taste.

Before you make sweets at home, you need to check if there is a special form in the house that allows you to create original "sugar figurines" loved by all children. You can also prepare homemade caramel according to the third recipe, which is offered below. The first step is to purchase the following ingredients: granulated sugar in the amount of one glass, 50 grams of milk, butter in the amount of 100 grams, as well as vanillin and a couple of tablespoons of melted flower honey. When all the products are prepared, you can proceed to the preparation of delicious sucking sweets. First of all, thoroughly melt the right amount of sugar in a saucepan with a thick bottom until liquid caramel forms, then pour in 50 grams of milk and continue cooking over moderate heat for another ten minutes.

The most important thing is not to leave the kitchen anywhere, otherwise the sugar can burn a little, change the color of the caramel and give it a bitter taste, thereby spoiling the children's appetite. After regular kneading of a homogeneous mass, add honey and oil to it in the above proportions. As a rule, vanillin is added at will only if the family has a sweet tooth, which is always "not sweet". After the caramel thickens, turn off the heat and remove the pan from the gas stove. Then carefully lay it on parchment paper, which has been previously prepared and generously greased with butter, to further give the sweets the desired shape. When the brown hot caramel becomes already warm, you need to cut it in such a way that its pieces resemble the shape of candies loved by everyone in childhood.

In fact, all the recipes proposed above are identical, but are based on the traditional smelting of granulated sugar on fire. The rest of the ingredients are chosen at your discretion and according to children's taste preferences, and the shape and size of the sweets completely depend on the flight of fancy and the hostess has a special form. If there is a desire to make lollipops, then ordinary toothpicks or canapé skewers can be used as a stick. In addition, ground nuts, lemon concentrate, various fruit syrups, or condensed milk can be added to homemade caramel. So every child will find their own unforgettable taste of homemade lollipops.

“It’s good to roam the world with a caramel in your cheek. And take one more for a friend in a pocket in reserve ... ”- I recall Funtik’s children’s song from an old Soviet cartoon when you unfold the wrapper of a caramel candy.

Caramel(from French caramel, from late Latin cannamella - sugar cane) is a confectionery product from a mass that is obtained by heating sugar or boiling down a sugar solution (caramelization).

Favorite since childhood, caramels are a popular and affordable delicacy, both in terms of price category and variety. Can't imagine sweet Christmas gifts without caramel sweets, a rare grandmother will not give her beloved grandchildren a handful of candies. All this is a taste of childhood, nostalgia, so caramel sweets still remain at the peak of their fame.

However, can they always be safe for human health. How to choose high-quality caramel sweets?

All caramels can be divided into 2 groups:

- lollipops. Made entirely from caramel mass. They can look like dragees (montpensier), candies on a stick, lollipops in a wrapper (both single and packed in several pieces). They can be vitamin and medicinal (lozenges for coughs, sore throats), while the necessary ingredients and additives (herbal extracts, propolis, pollen, etc.) are added to the sugar mass.

- stuffed caramels. Used caramel mass and filler.

Quality caramel candies are cream, creamy white, or light brown (due to the cocoa powder they contain). If the caramel has too bright colors (red, orange, blue), artificial colors and flavors were added during the manufacture, some of which can threaten health.

An equally important parameter of the quality of caramel is the filling.

By type of filling caramel sweets can be divided into the following groups:

Caramel with fruit and berry filling.

Caramel with fondant filling,

Caramel sweets with chocolate filling,

Caramel with butter and sugar filling,

Caramels with nut, halvich fillings, with praline,

Caramel sweets with jelly filling,

Caramel with liqueur filling.

The safest fruit and berry filling, which gets into sweets in the form of puree. It is dark in color and has a semi-liquid texture. Such fruit and berry puree is prepared from apples, plums, apricots.

Marzipan and chocolate-nut mass fillings are also considered safe. They can be safely given to children.

Any dairy fillings are made from refractory fat, which is not completely digested in the human body. Therefore, it can be harmful to health. No less dangerous are fillings with a refreshing property. They contain chemical menthol - one of the most harmful flavors.

Caramel sweets by location and number of fillings can be:

With one filling

With double filling

With multiple toppings

With a filling that alternates with layers of caramel mass.

Caramel sweets also differ in the way the surface is treated:

Glossy. A thin layer of wax, fat or talc is applied to the surface of the caramel;

Glazed. The candy is covered with a thin layer of chocolate mass;

Bulk. The top layer of such caramel consists of granulated sugar or powder mixed with cocoa powder;

Dragee. The surface of the candy is doused with hot sugar syrup, then sprinkled with a mixture of granulated sugar and cocoa powder or powdered sugar, and glossy.

General rules for choosing caramel sweets

1. When buying sweets, you should definitely pay attention to the expiration date. Ordinary caramel sweets are stored for no more than one year.

2. If, when unfolding the candy wrapper, it was found that the sweetness had flowed or had a wet surface, it is better to refuse such caramel. A damp surface is a good breeding ground for pathogenic bacteria.

3. You should not eat sweets if the filling tastes like burnt puree.

4. The surface of the caramel candy should be smooth, and the filling should not show through the seams.

By choosing high-quality caramel sweets, you can not only enjoy the taste of your favorite treat, but also protect yourself and your family from the influence of low-quality products on the body.

Multi-colored fragrant caramels are familiar to everyone since childhood. They can be rolled in the mouth, held behind the cheek, as in a song, or quietly crunched, in a hurry to get to the juicy filling.

Who and how first came up with caramel, no one will remember. It is only known that even in ancient times people ate sugar cane roasted at the stake. The sweet juice contained in its stems, when heated, lost moisture, turning into a viscous sticky crust. It was she who became the progenitor of modern caramel, so sugar cannot be dispensed with in its production: there are no other substances in the world that can turn into such a viscous sweet mass. In fact, caramels are sweets made from sugar: apart from tasty impurities, more than 80% of caramel consists of sugar.

Rot Front can be considered the queen of caramel among domestic confectionery factories. It was with the production of sugar candies in the distant 1826 that the history of the Lenov trading house began, which later became a world-famous enterprise. Their multi-colored caramel, lollipops, sweets already in the first years of production became famous throughout Moscow and even beyond its borders. They were inexpensive, in addition, the merchant who founded the factory initially relied on good quality products, so the candies from the Lenovs scattered more than hot cakes. The production and sale of caramel was a matter of life for the Lenov family!

After the revolution, when the largest confectionery factories were nationalized, Babayev sweets came to the fore in terms of output. Along with the Krasny Oktyabr factory, all three still remain the most famous and sought-after manufacturers of caramel and other confectionery.

The assortment of caramel is very diverse. The simplest candy lollipop. It consists only of caramel mass - boiled sugar-treacle syrup and all kinds of aromatic and coloring additives. High-quality lollipops have a uniform structure and are somewhat reminiscent of multi-colored glass. Only edible and very tasty!

Layered caramel looks completely different. It is matte and consists of many thin layers. They are formed when the caramel mass is kneaded for a long time, stretching and saturating with oxygen.

Despite the fact that caramel candies are 70-80% sugar, they are rarely sugary. Sometimes their sweetness is so soft and unobtrusive that it seems like they are sugar-free sweets. It's all about our perception: caramel melts in the mouth in thin layers and does not overload our receptors, so its sweetness seems soft to us, and the taste reveals all its facets and shades.

Filled caramel candies are more difficult to manufacture and have a more interesting taste, unlike lollipops. Inside there may be fruit jelly or jam, cream or chocolate cream - in a word, the filling differs sharply in texture from the caramel shell. In addition, it is these sweets that are usually covered with chocolate icing - this is how a very special delicacy is created, which combines not only several different tastes (filling, icing, caramel), but also three completely different textures at once.

Sugar caramels and lollipops are famous for being the most inexpensive sweets. This is not surprising: sugar is a quite affordable product, so even the use of expensive additional ingredients has practically no effect on the cost of finished sweets. You can buy them both in packaged bags and by weight. But in a gift format, for example, caramel sweets for a birthday are usually not found - it is believed that they are too everyday and cheap for this. The only exceptions are New Year's children's sets, which combine chocolates, caramels, and many other sweets.

But soft caramel can often be found in the filling of beautiful chocolates in boxes, which are not ashamed to give even the most demanding hero of the day.

soft caramel

Soft caramel is a completely different product than sugar. It does not hold its shape well, so it is usually added as a filling to other sweets. The viscous and melting soft caramel often contains milk or cream, giving it a taste similar to boiled condensed milk. Loose sweets with such caramel are often bought for making candy bouquets: bright elegant candy wrappers and delicate taste make them an excellent festive option. For such crafts, it is advantageous to buy them in bulk from the manufacturer. So you can be completely sure that these are good, high-quality sweets, moreover, the price per kg for them will be lower than in a regular chain supermarket.

The Alyonka online store allows you to buy both weight caramel sweets and packaged in packages of 200-250 g. Just go to the official website, select the options you need and order. Sweets will arrive with delivery the very next day!

Caramels are available to everyone, since the cheapest raw materials are used for their manufacture - water, molasses and sugar, the same ingredients are used in the production of candies. But not all caramels contain natural ingredients and can be given to a child.

More useful, plain unglazed caramel, so that the caramel does not dry out and looks beautiful, it is glazed with sugar syrup, on the conveyor.

Don't eat caramel if...

You unwrapped the candy wrapper, and the caramel is sticky and wet. It is easy for her to get poisoned, because the wet surface is an excellent environment for the life of pathogenic bacteria. And if the package contains sweets without wrappers or with leaky filling, then the manufacturer is negligent in the production of sweets.

Fruit and berry filler should not have a burnt aftertaste, and fat fillers should be. This indicates that confectionery manufacturers and sellers do not comply with storage conditions, caramel is in heat or in high humidity conditions. Under proper storage conditions, caramel can be stored for up to a year.