The absolute meaning of caramel has not yet been defined by the scientific or regulatory community. Caramel, unlike chocolate, which has a very specific standard of identity, can mean very different things to different people.
The exact nature of the product varies based on the copious applications that employ its delightful characteristics; caramel ice cream topping must be able to flow while cold, while caramel candies should remain firm at room temperature. Some caramel functions best in caramel corn as a hardened shell around a popcorn center, just like I had as a kid at the circus. However, the caramel in your mocha caramel frappuccino is most functional when it mixes well with coffee.
Despite these diverse objectives and characteristics there is a unifying factor in all caramel-based snacks: the chemical caramelization process that make them all possible.
In addition to Maillard browning, the reaction between reducing sugars, such as those in corn syrup, and proteins, which produces color and flavor compounds, another reaction plays a role in the formation of caramel flavor molecules. Caramelization is the breakdown of sugar molecules at high temperatures into an immeasurable number of flavor and color chemical products. Sucrose’s sensational flavor explosion happens only upon reaching 340 degrees Fahrenheit; however this exact process of this phenomenon is, like the definition of caramel, complex and poorly understood.
More research on how sugar busts up into these delicious bits and pieces is still needed. Would you like to try your hand at it? Do your part for science. Make this recipe for homemade caramel apples, being sure to carefully watch the transformation that ensues.
Laura’s Caramel Apples
- 1 cup butter
- 2 1/4 cups brown sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 1 cup light corn syrup
- 1 15-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan. Stir in sugar and salt and then the corn syrup, mixing well. Mix in the sweetened condensed milk, stirring constantly. Keep stirring this mixture and heat to 248 degree F. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Let the mixture cool until thick and stir for a uniform thickness.
Alternatively, you can melt a whole mess of caramel squares until they are thick enoughto stir easily.
Whichever method you use, wash your apples and stick popsicle sticks in them, and then dip them in the yummy caramel. Place the apples on a sheet of parchment paper to harden.
Caramel Apples by QuintanaRoo.
8:38 am on October 14th, 2009
That is such an interesting point about the scientific/regulatory lack of a definition of caramel. I definitely think of it as a flavor rather than a substance; your discussion of the transformations of sucrose makes sense in that light. Thanks again for shedding light on the mysterious workings of sugar in my mouth!