Disaster + Uncaramelised milk = Desire
Uncaramelised milk + Desire = Caramel Curd
Therefore, Disaster + Desire = Caramel Curd
That’s Saturday morning arithmetic for you…aka syllogism or something like that.
Anyhow, saturday early morning wake-ups seem to be my inspiration for caramel cooking. Weeks ago it was caramelised white chocolate and this saturday past, it was something else. See I have a human alarm…in the form of a 2-year old lieverd (darling, in Dutch) who is also my son! This morning, the human clock is very effective and I am awake a whole 2 hours before I planned….considering my saturdays in the last few weeks have been hectic!
Anyhow, I come downstairs and instantly start planning my cooking/baking this weekend. On the list – a salted chocolate caramel shortbread and pumpkin bread. But…I have a little caramel from my last shortbread episode and a bowl of condensed milk in the deep freezer. The last time I attempted a confiture au lait/dulce de leche, it failed.Miserably. Maybe it was because I attempted it on a friday evening. Who knows? Anyhow, after two hours of boiling the milk and letting it stand overnight, I discovered it hadn’t worked on that fateful saturday morning, weeks ago.
Not wanting to waste the uncaramelised milk, I put it in a bowl and popped it in the deep freezer.
See, I promised my colleagues that I would bring in some caramel shortbread on Monday and so I had to think of where I would get the caramel. Since I didn’t plan to go to Paris, I decided to make some. However, I wasn’t ready to spend another couple of hours boiling a can of milk only to have it fail and so I kept thinking and the next thing that occured to me was…why not make a caramel curd? And that’s exactly what I did.
My aim was to make a curd with a thick, yet spreadable consistency which would be nice. Of course, I wanted to use up my frozen milk and have it ready in time for the shortbread. And so I got to work and in less than 20 minutes, I was done. Ready…to pot and refigerate.
Now, it ended up looking and tasting lovely….if a bit light. It was delish on the pumpkin bread as well…
Caramel curd…ready in 20 minutes flat!
Makes about 180ml / or a small – medium jar: enough to layer one 26cm shortbread and still have some left over…for pancakes and waffles. I’m making this up as I go along. Can you tell :-)?
You’ll need 1 egg 1 egg yolk 80g brown sugar (I used a mixture of light and dark) 100ml condensed milk (in my case I used 200ml and it was a bit too thin so I suggest halving the amount) Seeds from 1 vanilla pod 40 – 60 gm ice cold butter, cut into about 10 pieces Directions Whisk egg and egg yolk in a bowl
Sieve into a pan – to remove thick bits of yolk
Add sugar to egg mix and stir till its a soft mixture
Put pan on very low heat on your stove top – you want the mix to cook, not fry! (If you want scambled eggs though, by all means turn the heat up. Please DON’T. Note that I almost ended up in this very scenario!, Thank God I didn’t)
To deseed the vanilla, use a knife or pair of scissors to split it in two and then place on a bit of wax paper and scrape out seeds. Why wax paper?
Nonstick…so the seeds don’t get lost 🙂
After 10 – 12 minutes, it should be ready.
My version looked thin when I finished but it thickened a bit in the fridge
Put in clean and well washed jars ( I don’t sterilise the jars for my curds because they end up refigerated. I do make sure they are well washed though!)
Once it has cooled down, refigerate and use within 2 weeks. Make sure to stir before you use….all the vanilla seeds sink right to the bottom
…or make loads for Christmas and give away to friends!
Or do as I did with the Shortbread (I preferred my previous try though – much crisper, I suspect the liquid caramel had something to do with it but….) and Pumpkin bread…or make it up as you go along 🙂
As for the verdict from my colleagues today – they liked it…a lot. I served the salt on the side, not atop and some like it with salt on, some didn’t!
Mission accomplished.
Have you had any caramel disasters like me? Or maybe you have a human alarm 🙂 ?
[wpurp-searchable-recipe]Disaster + Desire = Caramel Curd – – – [/wpurp-searchable-recipe]
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I tried the condensed milk method to make the dulce de leche and it works… but you must simmer the cans for four hours and the bottom must not be touching the pan. I used a wire potholder for that.
But your recipe’s waaay better and more economical in terms of gas/electric usage.
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curd. for some reason, the word has a negative connotation in my mind. granted, the only curds i’ve ever had were citrus-based and nowhere near as desirable as a caramel version. your photography is excellent and this creation makes my stomach growl!
Carol, Ded, Zurin – Glad you like it and I did eat it with a spoon…now and again 🙂
Art and Appetite – I sooooooooo say the same….diet…hmmm. I’m trying to keep up with walking a few times a week! I love the christmas basket idea!
Oh my sweetness! I kept telling myself I’m on a diet but I just can’t do it–especially by looking at this.
It would really be a great addition to cookie baskets for Christmas though. This totally looks sooooooo divine. I’d love to put this on top of a bundt cake.
Love the curd! Great photos and Love your about page! :)) nice to know you n thanks for stopping by my blog.
I love caramel in any form – I could eat all of this with a spoon!
Your caramel looks fantastic. Mine usually ends up scorched! I’m enjoying your posts. Great photo’s!
Thanks for visiting my blog before!
Amelia – looking forward to reading your caramel post.
Thanks Christine, Rebecca
Oh Joy, I know your pain…haven’t been there lately but have been in the past.
wow this is so cool and wow you can cook lucky colleagues thanks for the Paris tips and I am so happy you are getting to go to blogger connect in london have fun love Rebecca
Mmm I love making caramel from scratch and adding fresh vanilla beans really gives it that rich buttery flavor. When I was a pastry chef I always cursed myself every time my sugar mixture would “crystallize” GAH so frustrating, but with much practice and patience I finally got the hang of it 🙂 Great post
[…] From The Kitchen Butterfly […]
This is quite an informative post! The caramel curd recipe is lovely, and the photos do a very good job of instructing how to make it.
Hi!
love this idea of caramel made like curd. I JUST made some caramel sauce for a gift (will publish the post very soon).
P.s.
Thanks for visiting and commenting 🙂
Claudia it was delish and I’m glad it didn’t end up as scrambled caramel!
Mimi, I used sweetened condensed milk
Thanks Tracy and Celia, I won’t be trying it in the microwave – promise!
Gorgeous, Oz! We make caramel, but with cream instead of condensed milk (Pete doesn’t like the latter). I agree with you, though, caramel is one seriously addictive flavour!
PS. I did try making the dulche thingy once with a can of condensed milk – someone told me to make it in the microwave. Trust me, don’t. 🙂
I do love these photos…caramel is rather photogenic.
Looks so delicious. Did you use regular condensed milk or sweetened condensed milk?
Mimi
I just use a little oven top beeper. I do a very easy dulche de leche by just putting condensed milk (in an ovenproof dish, covered) in the oven for an hour, but yours sounds so good with the real vanilla seeds added.