Inspiration: 2012 Golden Globes – ie. pretty gold colored candy treats

finished butterscotch

Supplies:
3qt saucepan
measuring cups/spoons
silpat lined cooking sheet
various molds
candy thermometer

Ingredients:
2 c sugar
2/3 c heavy cream
2/3 c water
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
6 Tbs butter (cut into small pieces)
1/2 tsp vanilla

ingredients

combine sugar, water and cream in saucepan. stir to combine. wash down sides with pastry brush and turn on heat to medium low.

cooking

slowly bring to boil until thermometer reaches 240degrees. drop in cut up pieces of butter – do not stir! 

cooking

continue to boil (again not stirring! do not let the left in spoon confuse you!) until mixture reaches 280degrees. turn off heat and stir in vanilla.

molds

pour mixture into lollipop, silicone, plastic molds – that have all been sprayed with nonstick spray. yes it’s a messy step.

cooling

pour remaining butterscotch mixture onto silpat and let cool. once cooled remove from molds (carefully) and break up butterscotch block into pieces.

noms

Lessons Learned:

• just be patient when letting mixture reach it’s final temperature. it’s tempting to stir once the butter is dropped in…but don’t. i stayed strong and managed not to stir.
• the candy worked really really well in the molds, much prefer that to the broken up pieces.
• for some reason when i was getting all of the butterscotch mixture out of the pan the final pour looked like this:

not pretty

i’m not sure if it had cooled too much and i should have poured left to right rather than straight down into one big pool o’scotch…once broken up the outer smooth sides of the candy were a lot harder, whereas the milky looking center had more of a grainy fudge (but still kind of hard) consistency.

Review: really rich and buttery tasting. like i said the molds turned out awesome and are really pretty. reminds me of the amazing butterscotch candies in the gold foil. the softer center parts from the big pour are tasty but i like the harder smooth consistency best.