On Monday, I covered Le Caramel’s Caramel Cream and Caramel Topping (and sort of their Caramel Syrup). Today, I get to write about their new Salted Butter Caramel candies and the new mystery product that they’ve been hyping on their Facebook page. For the record, I got permission to spill the beans!
The Salted Butter Caramels that I got were hand-wrapped in bits of wax paper. Le Caramel just invested in a wrapping machine, so when these babies become widely available, your packaging mileage may vary.
Each rectangle of caramel was about 2 inches long. They tasted super rich and buttery, with a round caramel flavor. The saltiness is noticeable in the finish and really makes the caramel flavor pop and linger.
While it tasted wonderful, I had trouble with the chew. It was very teeth-sticky and worked its way into my teeth – or rather, the space between my gums and my mouth, so that eventually there was nothing left to chew because it had all migrated away from my molars.
To be fair, the Le Caramel brochure that I got touted “the classic way to enjoy caramel: just unwrap and let the caramel slowly melt in your mouth to reveal its wonderful taste.”
So it’s kind of my fault that I tired out my jaw because I was impatient. And letting the caramel melt is a lovely taste experience. But you’ve been warned – the caramel candies aren’t best appreciated through chewing. An OM if you’re patient and eat it the recommended way. An O if you’re not.
And now, the big reveal (unless Le Caramel beat me to it in the time between when I wrote this review and when it posted): Caramel Cream with Chocolate.
The mystery ingredient of chocolate was quite sensible and not altogether unexpected. While the just-caramel caramels smelled of butterscotch, this smells intensely of pure cocoa and dark, almost scorched toffee. It’s brooding and complex and intriguing.
The Caramel Cream with Chocolate is still thick and caramel-like in texture, though it’s slightly less sticky and prone to dripping crazy long strands.
It tastes of deep cocoa notes with a lingering chocolate finish. While the caramel influence is clear in the texture, it’s less pronounced in the flavor, mostly coming through as a rich, buttery-ness.
It gets an OMG for being the best chocolate sauce I’ve ever had. I’ve been told it should be ready for sale within a month or so.
Le Caramel’s products are clearly well made with care and attention. At $12/13 a container (if you’re lucky, you can find it a bit cheaper on Woot), they’re more expensive than a bag of Milk Maid Caramels or a squeeze bottle of “caramel” that’s probably mostly high fructose corn syrup, but I think they’re pretty reasonably priced for an artisinal product that’s full of flavor and decadence.
Varsha