Soft vanilla caramels

• 8 tbsp infused butter

  Set your infusion strength above and this splits into infused and plain butter to hit whatever dose you want.

• 1 cupgranulated sugar
• 1 cupheavy cream
• ½ cuplight corn syrup
• ¼ cupwater
• 1 tspfine salt
• 2 tspvanilla extract

Method

1. 01

   Line an 8-inch square pan with parchment and leave an overhang on two sides. Cut the butter up and measure the vanilla before you start the syrup — once it is at temperature there is no time to go looking for anything.

2. 02

   Combine the sugar, corn syrup and water in a heavy 3-quart saucepan over medium heat and stir only until the sugar dissolves. Wash any crystals off the sides with a wet pastry brush.

   5 min

3. 03

   Warm the cream in a separate pan, then pour it into the syrup in a slow stream. It boils up hard, and a tall pan is the only thing keeping it off the stovetop.

4. 04

   Clip the thermometer to the side and cook without stirring until it reads 245 °F.

   245 °F · 25 min

5. 05

   Take the pot off the heat and leave it alone until the thermometer falls under 200 °F, about ten minutes. Then beat in the infused butter a few pieces at a time along with the salt and vanilla, until the caramel is glossy and no fat floats on top. Butter emulsifies just as well at this temperature as it does in a boiling syrup, so heating the infusion would cost you potency and buy nothing.

   10 min

6. 06

   Pour into the lined pan in one motion and do not scrape the last of it out of the saucepan — scraped caramel drags in crystals from the pot wall.

7. 07

   Set at room temperature until fully firm, at least three hours. The refrigerator sets it faster but also makes it harder to chew.

   180 min

8. 08

   Lift the slab out and cut a 6 by 6 grid with a long oiled knife. Measure the grid rather than eyeballing it — a caramel cut twice the size of its neighbor carries twice the dose, and this is the only place in the recipe where that can go wrong.

9. 09

   Wrap each piece in wax paper and keep them in a tin. Wrapped caramels are the most anonymous thing in a candy dish, so write on the lid and keep the tin out of reach of children and of anyone who has not been told what is in it.