In honor of Halloween, we created the most delicious homemade bubbly caramels that can be used for more than just a yummy Halloween candy treat.
If you follow Bubbly Side of Life on Instagram, you know that we have really been having a lot of fun baking with bubbly. And here is our newest creation.
Ways to Use Bubbly Caramels
- Cocktail garnish
- Caramel drizzle on top of baked goods or ice cream
- Bake inside cupcakes or muffins
- Dip for apples or to make caramel apples with fun toppings
Cheater Bubbly Caramels
Now, before we dove into the creating our own bubbly homemade caramels, I decided to take a bag a Kraft soft caramels and melt them (almost) according to the directions.
The directions say to melt the caramels in a saucepan with water, but you now what we did. We melted them with bubbly. And it actually turned out.
We used this caramel as a drizzle on some bubbly brownies and, of course, to create some bubbly cocktails.
This is definitely the easy way to create bubbly caramel for drizzling, but certainly didn’t try forming them back into a soft caramels.
Homemade Caramels
Now we did enjoy the easy way to create melted bubbly caramel, we wanted to try creating soft caramels from scratch, of course, with bubbly.
Now you will see that we used a thermometer to ensure we were creating this to make sure it was perfect, but we did try it without the first time and they did turn out. Of course, this just made things a bit easier.
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup of your favorite bubbly
- 1 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup corn syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Parchment paper for wrapping
- Line an 8×8 baking dish with parchment paper and spray it lightly with nonstick spray.
- Place the butter and cream in a saucepan and heat until the butter melts. Remove it from the heat.
- In a large saucepan, stir together the bubbly, sugar and corn syrup over medium heat until it is combined – the mixture will be thick.
- During this process, do not stir: using a candy thermometer, bring the mixture to a boil and let it cook until it reaches a golden and caramely color – about 275-320 (max) degrees F.
- Turn off the heat and very slowly pour in the cream and butter mixture while whisking. The mixture will bubble up and triple in size.
- Return it to the heat until it’s about 240-250 degrees F. Turn the heat off.
- Gently stir in the vanilla extract.
If you’re using this as a drizzle or a dip, stop here. If you’re using this as caramel candies, continue with steps 8-10.
- Pour the caramel into the lined baking dish and tap the pan on the counter a few times to remove any bubbles. Let it sit overnight (or a minimum or 4 hours).
- While the caramel sets, cut some parchment paper into the shape of the caramel you want.
- When ready to cut, lift the caramel square out by the parchment paper on the sides. Very lightly spray your knife with nonstick spray since these caramels are chewy. Wrap each caramel in a piece of parchment paper and twist the ends.
Soft Caramels: Cheater vs. Homemade
The biggest difference in the two different types of bubbly caramels was the hardness. The cheater caramels definitely hardened much more than the homemade caramels.
The cheater caramels are perfect for making caramel apples, drizzling on top of desserts or creating a caramel rim on your champagne coupe for your bubbly cocktail.
The homemade caramels are perfect for enjoying on their own, using to create other desserts, to drizzle on desserts. We actually created these apple muffins and baked a chunk of the homemade soft caramels right inside for a gooey caramel-y center.
Caramels Pair Well with Bubbly
When you’re pairing a dessert or candy with sparkling wine, you want to be sure to choose a dry, semi-dry or sweet bubbly. In order to truly enjoy both, this is the key.
Now I do get a lot of questions about sugar in bubbly and I encourage you to read this blog post all about it. But if we’re talking about enjoying some dessert, then let’s enjoy the bubbly as well….and maybe forget about the whole sugar thing. After all, there is always a reason to celebrate and you should be enjoying every minute of it!
Bubbly Baking Supplies
As always, if you are looking for supplies for your bubbly backing fun, we have created a Bubbly Side of Life Amazon storefront and linked all of our favorite items there for you.
Yes, we do get a commission, but the good news is, the prices are exactly the same either way. So thank you for supporting our shop!
Let us know if you try these bubbly soft caramels and how you use them!
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