Along the Way: Chocolate Caramel Slice Take 1

Chocolate Caramel Slice Take 1: don't try this at home!

 

INGREDIENTS

Base

• 1 cup (150g) plain flour
• 1/2 cup (40g) dessicated coconut
• 125g unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 cup (90g) brown sugar

Caramel filling

• 125g unsalted butter, chopped
• 2 x 395g cans sweetened condensed milk
• 1/3 cup (115g) treacle (see notes)
  

Chocolate topping

• 200g milk chocolate melts (see notes)
  
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F). Place all base ingredients in a bowl - flour, coconut, butter and brown sugar, and mix till it's just combined. Using the back of a spoon, press the mixture into the base of a lightly greased 20cm x 30cm tin, lined with non-stick baking paper, and bake for 15-20 minutes.
2. While the base is cooking, make the caramel filling. Place the butter, condensed milk and treacle in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk until the butter is melted and continue cooking, whisking frequently, for 5-7 minutes, or until the mixture has thickened slightly. *Scrape the sides and bottom of the pan as you go, to make sure it doesn't stick, clot or burn. Pour the caramel over the cooked base, spread evenly with a palette knife and cook for 15-20 minutes or until golden on top. Cool slightly, and then refrigerate until cold.
3. Place the chocolate and oil in a heatproof bown over a saucepan of simmering water, and stir until melted and smooth. Pour the chocolate over the caramel mixture and spread evenly. Regrigerate for 30 minutes, or until firm. Using a warm knife, cut into slices or squares to serve.

NOTES - 10 August 2020

This recipe actually called for golden syrup, not treacle, but there was no golden syrup in the supermarket when I went to shop for this recipe. So I reasoned treacle was pretty close in nature and function, and substituted that. I was wrong.

It is quite tricky to tell when the caramel filling is "thickening slightly", and this was my first time out. Treacle does not behave like golden syrup, and so as it cooked it was quite thick and a bit crystalline. You can see that in the picture above. I knew I'd buggered it up, but my wife encouraged me to complete the experiment, and so on we went.

The base was actually really good, so I learned to make that properly. I found that, after about 15 minutes you should keep an eye on it, and it does visibly colour up to golden. Some recipes insist that you need to let the base cool before pouring the caramel filling in. It's not necessary, as long as you're going to pop it straight back into the oven for the next bit of baking.

The caramel filling was not a caramel filling - the colour, texture and flavour were all wrong, being a bit more "burnt sugar" than caramel, and lacking the proper sweetness imparted by golden syrup. The texture was not the smooth caramel required, being more in the "soft and crumbly" department.

The experience of melting the chocolate and spreading it was valuable and successful. The recipe actually called for 200g of dark chocolate, but I elected to try to keep it simple and appealing first time out, so I went for a pack of milk chocolate melts that I knew was designed to be melted and crafted by amateurs. I know melting can be done in the microwave, but I find the heat distribution too unpredictable, so I prefer the double-boiler on the stove, where you can keep a close eye on it.

It can be tempting to put a really thick chocolate layer on this slice. Until you know what you're doing, I recommend against that - if the consistency of the caramel filling isn't up to the job, when you go to cut up the slice, you'll end up pressing the filling out while trying to cut through the chocolate.

All in all, this wasn't a failure - the result was still tasty and interesting, and good lessons were learned. But it wasn't at all the chocolate caramel slice I was looking for.