Choosing Healthier Food Options

Five Ways To Use Caramel Candies

Caramel candies are delicious on their own, but sometimes you may want to do something a little bit more creative than just eat them right out of the wrapper. 

Add Flavor to Coffee or Tea

Caramel candies are typically made with a mix of sugar, milk or cream, vanilla, and butter. This makes them a perfect sweetener to add into a cup of hot coffee or tea. They'll give your drink a caramel flavor without the use of flavored syrup. You can get even more creative and use gourmet caramels for this purpose to vary the flavor. These caramels come in all sorts of flavors, including cinnamon, chocolate, mint, butterscotch, coffee, or fruit flavors.

Use as a Dip or Sauce

Another well-known way to use up caramel candies is to melt them to form a dip or sauce. Adding a bit of cream to the sauce will help keep it smooth and creamy, but some people use water or milk instead if they don't have cream handy. Dip fruit or doughnuts into the caramel or pour it over cake, cheesecake, or ice cream. Add other ingredients to amp up the flavor even more, such as sea salt, bourbon, beer, blueberries or peanuts. Dip marshmallows, cookies, crackers, apples or apple slices in melted caramel and then in melted chocolate and finish the treat with a coating of nuts, coconut, mini chocolate chips, sprinkles, crushed chocolate cookies or small candies like mini M&Ms or Reese's pieces. Melt the caramels with marshmallows and mix the resulting sauce into popcorn for a sinfully sticky sweet treat.

Make It Savory

A newer trend is to make savory caramel sauces. Mixing caramels with fish sauce, star anise, cinnamon and hot chilis can form an Asian sauce that's perfect to go with fried chicken. Mix them with miso and soy sauce and you've got a tasty sauce for cooking salmon. Darker caramels are best for use in sauces for more strongly flavored dishes, while lighter caramels go well in sauces for more delicately flavored dishes.

Use in a Dessert Recipe

Caramels can be chopped up and used as a topping for cakes or an ingredient in cupcakes or brownies. They can be used to make homemade versions of popular cookies and candy bars. Melt a caramel over nuts and top it with chocolate to make a turtle, or make a quick and easy dessert by layering pretzels with caramels and then either chocolate candies or nuts and putting the treats in the oven just until the caramel softens and spreads a little.

Share the Wealth

You can also have a get together with friends and use up leftover caramels with a caramel apple bar. Have sliced apples on sticks and an array of different toppings to choose from and let guests dip their slices in caramel and then their choose of extra toppings. Another option is to make fancy caramel apples and wrap them in cellophane to give as gifts. Try a wide variety of different toppings to make custom flavors, such as caramel, milk chocolate, pecans and mini marshmallows or caramel, white chocolate and peanuts.

Visit a website like http://www.abdallahcandies.com for more ideas.


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