Caramello... My Guilty Pleasure

I don't really love chocolate. If its on the dessert table or dessert menu I can pass it up. Chocolate and cake too. I am not really a huge fan of either. In fact, I boycotted cake at my birthday parties at about the age of 14 and demanded only cheesecake be served. However, before you think I am extremely weird it is important to know that if there is some buttery crusty bread or nice creamy cheese or some crispy thin fries on the table, I will have to be forcibly removed before I am able to stop eating any or all of the above. So, I am a salty, not a sweet, shocking I know...  (but kinda weird inandofitself (southern word) because I don't really like salt).

Melton's Irish Nachos, something I can't pass up!

Anyway so chocolate, not a huge fan. While dining at Cakes and Ale a few weeks ago I heard the man next to me at the bar remark that his wife was disappointed there was no chocolate dessert on the menu. Hum, I thought, sounds like a perfectly fine dessert menu to me. Personally I prefer a nice Creme Brulee, a egg custard, a cheesecake, a panna cotta, a cheese course, something with caramel... are we seeing a trend here? eggs, butter, sugar, cheese, cream... all the good stuff. I don't need any coca beans to round out the evening.

The egg custard, topped with homemade caramel from Monteluce Winery in Dahlonega, GA. One of the best desserts I've ever had!

However the exclamation about the dessert menu didn't really surprise me as my friend Archna also believes that a dessert menu is not a real dessert menu unless there is something chocolate on it. I tend to disagree, I'll take custard, more custard, cream cheese concoctions and more dishes with eggs and butter please. However, there is one chocolate concoction that makes me change my ways. It is none other than the.....

Yep, that is my guilty pleasure. Now before you get all excited thinking I like chocolate you must understand the make-up of a Caramello and understand the chocolate is simply a carrier for the caramel, aka burnt sugar and butter with a touch of cream! So we are back to the butter and cream... Hell you'd think my dad was a dairy farmer instead of a cotton farmer, but I digress.

When I was young and innocent, or looked it anyway

My love affair with the Caramello goes back to junior high and high school where all the cool kids had money for the vending machines to spend during recess or lunch. Everyone got their daily candy bar treat and I wanted to be part of the in-crowd. But, I missed out on this event because 1) I didn't really like chocolate or nuts, therefore I didn't like most candy bars and 2) I am allergic to peanuts so there were not many candy bars I could not eat. Now I could have been a good little girl and not tried to like candy bars and saved several calories down the road but.... yeah, it's me you are dealing with, so lets move on...

Notice there is caramel on top, but clearly not enough caramel

I tried the ultra cool and new Zero candy bar about 10 times to make sure I didn't like it. I was certain I would eventually enjoy the white chocolate covering and get past the chopped up nuts in the center. Nope. I even tried the Milky Way a few dozen times but, no didn't like it either. However, when the Milky Way ice cream bars came out, I devoured them like there was no tomorrow, but we are back to cream and eggs again so...

Again, ice cream and caramel... cream and cream + burnt sugar & butter

In my quest to fit in with the candy bar-eating-recess-crowd I discovered the Caramello. This candy bar consists of several sections of hollow chocolate squares filled with caramel. Each section is like a little candy bar in itself and if you had any self-control you could probably just eat one square and save the rest for later, or share, or something else that you know really isn't going to happen.

The only two squares I had left by this point in the post.

Now, fast forward to 2003 when I was taking an instructor training course and I was assigned to teach the class how to complete a specific task of my choosing. The catch was we couldn't use a method or technique in our discipline and we had to use everyday objects (or something of the sort, I really can't remember 9 years ago). However the important portion of the assignment was to use the teaching method referred to as tell me, show me, involve me. Thus after racking my brain for days to trying to determine what I could do that was both fun and reasonable I was at the CVS around 11pm the night before I was set to teach buying every Caramello they had.

Yes, yes and hell yeah!

The next day I stood up in front of a class of 12 or so cops and told them the proper method for eating a Caramello. As they were all sitting there wide eyed, I demonstrated how to properly eat the candy bar (picture me eating a Caramello in front of 12 cops here). The method goes like this, first you must break off a square of the Caramello.

Step One

Then you must carefully bite around the edges of the square to free the bottom portion of the vessel from the rounded top portion of the vessel.

Step 2: The edges eaten off the square and bad lighting in my kitchen

Now use the flat chocolate piece to scoop out the caramel from the rounded portion, at which point you promptly place all that delicious goodness in your mouth. If you are a good enough dipper, you can simply discard the rounded chocolate vessel and move onto your next square.

Steps 3&4: scoop and eat! and enjoy and get better lighting

Now let's talk about discarding that top chocolate portion. I used eat the Caramello this way and is the way I taught the class to eat the Caramello, But in my quest to ingest all calories I possibly can (smirk) I have taken to now eating the top chocolate portion as well. I am sure this would nothing but excite my former classmates as all the chocolate lovers in the class gasped in unison when I told them they could simply throw that portion away. 

But let's be honest, even though this is a chocolate candy bar I am really only eating it for the caramel. I could seriously eat caramel with a spoon and have been known to do so on many occasions. Actually I should just start doing that because that would save me the calories contained in the caramel carrier (usually chocolate or ice cream).

I have eaten this Fat Toad Vanilla Bean Caramel with a spoon before. The entire jar... not in one sitting, but close. I highly recommend it. Its made from goats milk, so I think that makes it healthy or something... maybe

Before you think I am simply getting all my caramel and chocolate fixes from the gas station I must tell you about Fran's Salted Caramels. On one of my many trips to Seattle for my annual forensic science meeting I read that Fran's chocolates was the place to go, but I didn't really pay much attention because I don't like chocolate and chocolate shops don't really excite me that much. However I happened to walk by Fran's and they had the most awesome window display I have ever seen. The entire shop was lavishly and superbly decorated for Easter, so much so I could not walk by without stopping. Once in the store I wanted to simply bask in the scenery and try not to be sucked in to buying something simply because it looked pretty.

After several minutes or more of looking around I finally realized I was going to buy something and settled on the only chocolate item in the store I could imagine myself liking, the salted caramels. Now mind you, these really aren't chocolates, they are caramels lightly coated in chocolate and dusted in sea salt.

Fran's milk chocolate and dark chocolate gray salt and smoked salt caramels.

They are tiny bits of deliciousness that you could pop in your mouth one at a time, but because they are so delicious you make the one-bite caramel last for four bites (this may also have something to do with the fact they are $2 each).

They come in this cute little box of 20, which actually makes them $1.40 each or $28 a box (as of today). Isn't the packaging nice? I'm sure thats worth at least $8 of the price, but I do love a good presentation.

I think I got four of these while in Seattle and ate them before I even got back to the hotel. I never really forgot about this upscale version of the Caramello, but simply thought I would get them again when I returned to Seattle. That is until this past Christmas. I was watching one of the "best of" shows on Food Network and saw Bobby Flay mention that one of his favorite gifts, or something along those lines, was the coconut bars from Fran's. Forget the coconut stuff, all I heard was that they ship the salted caramels.

Therefore I promptly got online to order my high-faluting Fran's-located-next-to-the-Ritz-Carlton salted caramels. I was actually first surprised at the fairly decent price for the box of 20 tiny bites of goodness, until I realized it was going to cost me just as much for shipping as it was to buy the box.

Need I say more???

Oh well, it was Christmas after all and $40 and a box of 20 salted caramels later I was a happy camper. But hey, it is not everyday I can get the pricey salted caramels and sometimes it is necessary to resort to the $1.99 King Size Caramello from your local gas station or CVS.

Here is the King Size version... Why not?

Speaking of the King-Size version, which is in sharp contrast to the miniature versions sold at Fran's, I hate it when I get to the store craving one of those things and all they have is the King Size. Then I am forced to buy the King Size bar, which means I will eat that King Size bar because there is no way I could ever throw a perfectly good Caramello away.

The cure for the common cold or bronchitis...

And why should I, really? What made me think of my love affair with caramel and namely Caramellos you may ask? Well today as I was leaving work early and sick with bronchitis I had to stop and get gas. For some reason when I am sick a good old fashioned Coke makes me feel all better. But what makes me feel even better is a Coke Icee and a King Size Caramello... Yep, that was all they had, King Size... oh well maybe it is the cure for bronchitis.

Happy Eating!

Holy mother load, this girl made Caramello cookies... recipe here

Oh and...

I do love caramel cake, mostly just for the icing though, I discard most of the cake... which is not surprising, all things considered.