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Award-winning chef, author and forager Alan Bergo. Food is all around you.

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Candy Cap Caramels

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Candy cap mushrooms caramels recipeHolidays remind me of seeing butter caramels sitting out on the counter at Grandma’s, or being wrapped for sale in the corner nook that’s always populated by different sweets at her house. I never ate a ton of them, but I’ve been having fun dreaming up caramels for a mignardise platter, a tray of small candies and sweets made out of different things. After a few different versions, I settled on caramels flavored with dried candy cap mushrooms. 

Exploding candy thermometers 

Since we’re talking temperature sensitive sugar work here, if you use a candy thermometer from a grocery store like I was (not anymore) check out these handy ones from Polder. The problem with the classic sugar thermometer is the bottom of the probe, if it touches the bottom of a pan that gets hot (like while working with sugar) it can blow up, inside the caramel, which is as much fun as it sounds like. The culprit is pictured below.

P.O.S. candy thermometer

P.O.S. candy thermometer

Thermometer detonation happened to me during my first batch, and I wasn’t happy about having to toss gobs of sugar, butter and cream after I pulled the therm out and noticed the glass nodule at the bottom had exploded.

Thermometer problems aside, I found I almost didnt need one after a couple rounds, since dropping a bit of hot caramel off of a spoon in a cup of ice water next to the stove tells you pretty quick where you’re at with the setting process. A drop of caramel in cold water should hold it’s shape-but just barely and should still be a bit squishy.

Candy cap mushrooms caramels recipe

Candy caps love cream and sugar 

Candy caps and caramel is a super combo, with the flavor of the butterscotch-y mushroom transferring like a dream into any syrup or cream, or, in the case of carmels, both. Interestingly enough with the flavor, I liked powdered candy caps raw whipped in at the end instead of infusing them in the beginning, which was a little counter intuitive for me.

Are they expensive compared to regular carmels that get doled out during the holidays? Absolutely, and worth every penny. These are powerful little things. You can smell them a couple feet away as people eat them, you can smell them through layers of cling film, and you can smell them on your fingers long after they’re gone. More than one person has told me they were the best caramel they’d ever had, and I’ve only been making them for a month.

re-melting grainy caramel
Hunks of caramel waiting to get re-melted.
Grainy Caramel-2
See the coarse texture? The. Worst.

Troubleshooting 

When you get to the point where the sugar starts to set, things get touchy, and a small variation in degrees can mean the difference between tooth cracking hard, and a sticky mess fit for a toddler. Luckily caramel is forgiving, and I learned a couple things.

Caramel set too firm?

Re-melt it gently in a double boiler with a splash of cream or water, or a couple splashes depending on how gentle you need to be, then transfer to a saucepan and cook until set to your liking.

Caramel set too soft?

Cut it into pieces and put it in a bowl on top of a pot of gently simmering water, then transfer to a pot and cook again, dropping some in ice water to test if it’s set.

Don’t scrape the pan

It’s hard, but you have to resist the urge to scrape the pan of excess caramel, especially if you don’t use corn syrup. I crystallized two different batches of caramels I was making this way-one of them was made with pure maple syrup and maple sugar, so you can imagine my joy. The caramel that is stuck to the sides of the pan seems like it can infect the nicely-set caramel like a cancer, crystallizing it from the inside out.

Candy cap mushrooms caramels recipe

Candy cap mushrooms caramels recipe
Print Recipe
5 from 2 votes

Candy Cap Butter Caramels

Yield: around 25, 2-inch caramels 

Equipment

  • Candy thermometer

Ingredients

  • 6 grams dried candy cap mushrooms ground to a fine powder, roughly 1 finely ground tablespoon
  • 4 oz / 1 stick unsalted butter
  • Good pinch of fine salt
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 1 cup light corn syrup or substitute up to half maple syrup
  • 1 cup light brown sugar

Instructions

  • Before starting, read through the whole recipe, and make sure you have the mise-en-place ready.
  • lightly grease a loaf pan with butter or oil. I like a loaf pan. In a wide heavy pot that will transfer heat evenly, melt all ingredients but the candy caps, stirring with a heat proof spatula or wooden utensil. A cast iron dutch oven or enameled cast iron pan is perfect for high heat sugar work, but a good, heavy stainless steel (I don't reccommend aluminum) pot will work too.
  • Cook the mixture on medium heat stirring occasionally until the carmel hits exactly 240--soft ball stage. Pour a drop of caramel into a small cup of iced or cold water to test if it’s set, you want it to hold it’s shape, but still be soft. As long as it's hit 240 F, you're fine, don't cook it further.
  • When the caramel is set, do the next steps quickly: turn the heat off, remove the thermometer from the pot, stir in the candy caps,, then pour the mixture into your prepared pan using one motion--do not scrape the remaining caramel from the cooking pan. I use a loaf pan for these, or a square cake pan for double batches.
  • Allow the carmels to cool naturally on the counter. Hash temperature swings can break the emulsion, and make a grainy caramel, meaning you’ll have to remelt them. Re-melting can work, but it can be annoying.

Related

Previous Post: « Forager’s Winter Tasting Menu
Next Post: Dried Lobster Mushroom Rub »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Nora

    January 17, 2020 at 11:24 pm

    Hi, thanks for the recipe! Do you have advice for using maple sugar? Also 135 sounds quite low for caramel, is that Celsius? Thanks 🙂

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      January 21, 2020 at 3:24 pm

      No, not celcius, thanks for catching that. 240 will do just fine, and I adjusted that. Just made a 3x batch this week so they’re fresh in my mind. Do not use maple sugar, it’s tempting if you have some, but you won’t notice the flavor at all, unless it breaks, which I thought was strange. Brown or white sugar will work fine. To clarify, you can use maple sugar if you’re using corn syrup or another invert sugar to stabalize it (don’t use maple–it won’t set–I tried). Alan.

      Reply
  2. Caroline

    April 22, 2020 at 9:29 pm

    I love reading your recipes and writing.

    I found some Lactarius rufulus candy caps in my backyard. Do they need to be dried before cooking? Or are there any recipes you can recommend for them in their fresh form? (Caramel or other).

    Thank you!

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      April 23, 2020 at 10:04 am

      You could try cooking them just like any other mushroom in their fresh form, I haven’t worked with them fresh as those species don’t grow in the Midwest. I have to settle for Lactarius camphoratus which is a very poor substitute if that.

      Reply
  3. Andrea Morris

    December 1, 2020 at 2:44 pm

    I pick candy cap mushrooms and the flavor isn’t released until they’re dried. They kinda have a faint smell until you dry them and would have a lot of moisture you wouldn’t want in candy. Dry them if you pick them and put them in candy.

    Reply
  4. Harriette Jensen

    December 31, 2020 at 2:56 pm

    5 stars
    The URL on the link for this article is incorrect. I had to remove the http part of it in order for it to work.

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      December 31, 2020 at 3:59 pm

      I don’t know what you mean by “incorrect”. It works fine for me and this is the only complaint I’ve noticed along those lines out of the many thousands of people who view it during candy cap season each year. I have been having some issues with the server that runs this site though. Could you elaborate a bit?

      Reply

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Alan Bergo
Morels: the only wild mushroom I count by the each Morels: the only wild mushroom I count by the each instead of the pound. 

Good day today, although my Twin Cities spots seem a full two weeks behind from the late spring. 2 hours south they were almost all mature. 

76 for me and 152 for the group. Check your spots, and good luck! 

#morels #murkels #mollymoochers #drylandfish #spongemushroom #theprecious
The first time I’ve seen fungal guttation-a natu The first time I’ve seen fungal guttation-a natural secretion of water I typically see with plants. 

I understand it as an indicator that the mushrooms are growing rapidly, and a byproduct of their metabolism speeding up. If you have some clarifications, chime in. 

Most people know it from Hydnellum 
peckii-another polypore. I’ve never seen it on pheasant backs before.

Morels are coming soon too. Mine were 1 inch tall yesterday in the Twin Cities. 

#guttation #mushroomhunting #cerioporussquamosus #pheasantback #naturesbeauty
Rain and heat turned the flood plain forest into a Rain and heat turned the flood plain forest into a grocery store. 

#groceryshopping #sochan #rudbeckialaciniata #foraging
Italian wild food traditions are some of my favori Italian wild food traditions are some of my favorite. 

Case in point: preboggion, a mixture of wild plants, that, depending on the reference, should be made with 5-23 individual plants. 

Here’s a few mixtures I’ve made this spring, along with a reference from the Oxford companion to Italian food. 

The mixture should include some bitter greens (typically assorted asters) but the most important plant is probably borage. 

Making your own version is a good excercise. Here they’re wilted with garlic and oil, but there’s a bunch of traditional recipes the mixture is used in. 

Can you believe this got cut from my book?!

#preboggion #preboggiun #foraging #traditionalfoods
Oh the things I get in the mail. This is my kind Oh the things I get in the mail. 

This is my kind of tip though: a handmade buckskin bag with a note and a handful of bleached snapping turtle claws. 😁😂 

Sent in by Leslie, a reader. 

Smells like woodsmoke and the cat quickly claimed it as her new bed. 

#buckskin #mailsurprise #turtleclaws #thisimylife #cathouse
Bluebell season. Destined for a Ligurian ravioli Bluebell season. 

Destined for a Ligurian ravioli as a replacement for the traditional borage greens. 

#mertensiavirginica #virginiabluebells #spring #foraging
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