Ginger Caramel: A Caramel That Can Soothe You
Char lives in Minnesota, where she enjoys experimenting in the kitchen and making yummy treats for her family.
Making caramels can get your hands dirty, so be prepared!
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup grated ginger
- 3/4 cup water
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 box Instant Vanilla Pudding
- 3/4 cup confectioners sugar
Here's a brief rundown of the instructions. For step-by-step pictures and a far lengthier discussion of the process, just keep scrolling!
Instructions
- Peel the ginger. Grate it. Put in pan with an equal amount of water and sugar.
- Bring mixture to a boil and cook for 30 minutes. Then, add a tablespoon of butter and add a box of Jello Pudding, caramel flavor. Continue boiling until the mixture starts to form a slight ball when stirred.
- Pour the mixture onto a parchment paper covered pan on which you've placed a pile of confectioners sugar. Pour the caramel onto the sugar and let cool.
- At this point, you can form into balls or simply place the entire piece into a plastic bag and put into your refrigerator to deal with later.
Cook Time
| Prep time | Cook time | Ready in | Yields |
|---|---|---|---|
30 min | 45 min | 1 hour 15 min | 2 cups of ginger caramel |
Trying to Find a Recipe
I looked on numerous videos and read what seemed like hundreds of recipes. Thus armed with a little information, I marched into the grocery store, determined to get something that would fulfil my current cooking fantasy.
I found a ginger root. Not a big one, just a small, four inch piece. It seemed like just the size I needed to complete my task. I went to the Jello aisle and looked through the flavors. [You see, when I make caramel rolls, I use butter and cook and serve Vanilla pudding for my caramel]
It seemed a good idea to find a caramel pudding to thicken up my ginger candy.
Peel and slice the ginger.
Ginger Candy Videos
One of the videos I watched showed a woman with a bowl of thinly sliced ginger, a bit of sugar, some water, and the main point of her demonstration was that the amount of ginger, sugar, and water was exactly the same.
So. I had about three quarters of a cup of ginger. I figured that I'd use 3/4 cup of water and 3/4 cup water in a pan, and she suggested bringing that mixture to a boil and simmering it at a low boil for 30 minutes.
Hardly a Chew
When I combined the ingredients and boiled them for a while, I found that they formed a soft ball. The texture is a bit stringy, but flavorful.
I thought they'd be dangerously hot, so spicy they'd make my head sweat, but, nope, just flavorful.
The Ginger as it Boils
The ginger, as it boils, gets a clear, almost translucent appearance. This is good. The water, sugar combination started to get a little thicker.
I had initially sliced my ginger very thin into circles, but changed my mind and put it through the Salad Shooter again, this time using the grater blade. There were a few chunky chunks that seemed to be out of place and hard, so I discarded them.
It Takes Half an Hour to
Once the initial half hour of boiling was done, I added a teaspoon of butter and dumped in a box of instant Jello caramel flavored pudding mix.
Then, I went back to stirring. It started to thicken up, the texture turning into a putty-like texture, almost a play clay.
I had some parchment paper ready with some powdered sugar on it. I poured the ginger mixture on the powdered sugar and let it cool. It got firmer and firmer the longer it sat. I then found a zip lock bag and put the whole works, sugar and all into the bag.
Sat it on a shelf in the refrigerator to finish cooling in the bag.
The Flavor
The flavor was a surprisingly mild, caramel flavor with a little hint of spiciness. Not overly spicy, but not disappointing.
The texture was like those soft chews that I grew up with in the 1960s. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? Those paper wrapped Brach's candy that were in the grocery store. They were the size of a small finger, and there was a hard cream filling in the middle. Almost like a tootsie roll, but not chocolate. These ginger candies were almost like that.
Comments
Dora Weithers from The Caribbean on February 06, 2017:
I like ginger anything starting with the scent. Thank you for the recipe and the picture demonstrations.
