Salted Caramel x 3

Salted caramel is a food trend that’s been with us for the last couple of years. And, readers, this trend, pardon the pun, is worth its salt.

If you haven’t done so already, take yourself down to your nearest hipster café or restaurant, and order the salted caramel option. Believe me, if your hipster venue is truly thus, it will be there.

What I love about salted caramel is that it’s deliciously contradictory. The sweet, creamy caramel, interspersed with (ideally) still-flaky shards of salt. It’s so wrong, yet so bizarrely right, the only fitting soundtrack is the best of Prince (you have to promise me that you’ll eat salted caramel while listening to Prince at least once, just to prove that, although my suggestion sounds a little whack, it’s gosh darn perfect).

I have to admit, salted caramel is not something I make frequently, because when it comes to salted caramel, I have absolutely no self control. If it’s in my fridge, I WILL eat it. Within the day (actually, if I’m honest, within the hour).

However, when people are coming over, or when I’m invited for a leisurely BBQ with some mates, I’m more than happy to contribute something deliciously tasty as well as deliciously on trend.

To make matters even better, salted caramel is surprisingly simple. Here I’ve provided the basic salted caramel recipe, salted caramel chocolate pots, and, grandest of all, salted caramel and chocolate tart (my recipe is loosely based on one that appeared in Delicious magazine a couple of years ago, but I’ve fiddled with it sufficiently to feel comfortable calling it my own).

It’s like a salted caramel pick-your-own adventure book, where every path you pick leads to a sticky, sweet, salty end. Enjoy!

Salted Caramel (makes approximately a cup and a half of sauce, keeps in the fridge for up to a week – but let’s admit, it’s not likely to stick around for that long).

I cup sugar
1/3 cup water
125g salted butter
1/3 cup pouring cream
Sea salt flakes

1. Place sugar and water in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Swirl saucepan to dissolve sugar. Simmer, without stirring, until starting to colour – about 15 minutes. (You will need to watch this carefully, because, guaranteed, the moment you turn your back to put a load of washing on, you’ll have taken the caramel too far, and will have a horrible burnt mess in your pan).
2. Lower the heat once the caramel has started to colour. Add the chopped butter, and stir over the heat for another 5 minutes or until golden. The mixture will look hideously split at this stage. Don’t panic.
3. Take saucepan off the heat. Stir in half of the cream. Watch your split mixture magically coalesce into a cohesive caramel. Stir in the remaining cream. Gloat at your cleverness.
4. Add a PINCH of salt flakes to the caramel. You need to salt slowly, carefully: you can always add more salt, but you can’t take it out once it’s in, and it’d be such a shame to ruin some beautiful caramel. Stir, taste. Add more salt, if you feel it needs it. Repeat until your caramel is salted to the perfect point of contradiction.
5. Store in the fridge, to serve over ice cream, or, my favourite, with fresh blueberries.

Salted Caramel Chocolate Pots (Makes 6, depending on ramekin size)

1 quantity salted caramel (above)
175 g dark chocolate
1 1/3 cups pouring cream
2 eggs, beaten
Cocoa powder, to serve

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees.
2. Distribute your salted caramel evenly between your (oven safe) ramekins, filling each ramekin to no more than 1/3 full. Place in fridge to chill.
3. Meanwhile, break chocolate into a bowl. Heat cream in either a saucepan until almost boiling, or in a microwave safe jug (watch very carefully if you are microwaving the cream to avoid overheating).
4. Pour hot cream over chocolate, and whisk until chocolate is dissolved and smooth. Whisk in eggs.
5. If you want a nice, neat divide between your caramel layer and your chocolate layer, chill the caramel for a bit longer, maybe even overnight. If, like me, you prefer an intermingled confection, pour chocolate mixture into the ramekins over the only-just-chilled caramel.
6. Bake at 160 degrees for 30-40 minutes, until the chocolate layer is just firm to touch. There will be bubbly, oozy soft bits, but these will firm up as the pots cool.
7. Dust lightly with cocoa.
8. Serve, with fresh berries and cream.

Salted Caramel and Chocolate Tart

2 sheets store bought shortcrust pastry (yes, I’m a failure as a woman for not making my own pastry)
1 quantity salted caramel (above)
1 quantity chocolate mixture from the Salted Caramel Chocolate Pots recipe (also above).

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
2. Line a non-stick, 22cm diameter spring form cake pan with thawed pastry sheets. (Although you are making a tart, and would assume a tart or quiche pan would be best, I find a spring form pan the easiest, least messy way to make this). Be sure to line you pastry all the way to the top of the pan – store bought pastry will shrink considerably when cooked. Chill in freezer for ten minutes.
3. Meanwhile, assemble your salted caramel, and your chocolate mixture.
4. Remove pastry-lined tin from freezer. Blind bake for ten minutes, or until pastry is golden (Don’t know how to blind bake? It’s easy. Search for a demo video on YouTube).
5. Pour caramel into your blind baked tart case. Refrigerate (see above recipe for suggestions about separation/intermingling of layers). Top with the chocolate mixture.
6. Bake at 160 degrees for 45min-1 hour, or until the chocolate layer is just firm to touch. As with the salted caramel chocolate pots, there will be bubbly, oozy soft bits, but these will firm up as the tart cools.
7. Dust lightly with cocoa.
8. Serve with – you guessed it – berries and cream.