whenever we’re thinking about making a project, we always look around the house to see what materials we’ve got on hand. normally that means using a random piece of cork, or a surplus scrap of fabric. this week was a little different. we’ve had a lovely bottle of fleur de sel that derek’s parents gave us earlier this year, and inspired by a random conversation we were having with grace about salt, we decided to make these ridiculously decadent fleur de sel caramels. coupled with a simple origami nesting box made out of a leftover piece of wrapping paper, we’ve got ourselves the perfect gift for a friend’s birthday party this weekend. click here for the full project and instructions or just click “read more” below.
have fun!
-derek & lauren
here’s what you’ll need:
we got this recipe for fleur de sel caramels came from the october 2004 issue of gourmet magazine
ingredients:
1 cup heavy cream
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon fleur de sel
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1. line bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper, then lightly oil parchment.
2. bring cream, butter, and fleur de sel to a boil in a small saucepan, then remove from heat and set aside.
3. boil sugar, corn syrup, and water in a 3- to 4-quart heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil, without stirring but gently swirling pan, until mixture is a light golden caramel.
4. carefully stir in cream mixture (mixture will bubble up) and simmer, stirring frequently, until caramel registers 248°F on thermometer, 10 to 15 minutes. pour into baking pan and cool 2 hours. cut into 1-inch pieces, then wrap each piece in a 4-inch square of wax paper, twisting 2 ends to close.
for the lid of the origami box, we cut a 10″ square out of a sheet of gift wrap, and a 9 1/2″ square for the bottom. then we followed these instructions and tied the whole thing up with a piece of embroidery floss leftover from our embroidered curtain project!