Attention: This was formatted on PeakD. If it looks like a mess on other platforms, sorry. Just visit the PeakD URL. It looks pretty nice there.
I thought I'd do something a little different than simply showing how to make something.
Instead, I wanted to experiment with something: Sea Salt Caramel-based drinks!
Now, so far my favourite concoction has been a Homemade Sea salt Caramel Latte, which I'll demonstrate on a future post.
In another post, I'll show how I made what is possibly the greatest homemade caramel in the history of mankind.
But first I wanted to try and create something of my own, a kind of 'runs in the family' secret recipe that they'll sing about for generations to come, so far as which they don't even remember my name, just the legends of monsters I slew in order to acquire the ingredients from the peak of a Tibetan mountain.
This will take several renditions I think, as the upcoming result was... eh.
The Main Question
I wanted to know to which extent would chocolate overpower Caramel. This is because it sounds sensible to say a 'caramel hot chocolate' or 'Caramel Chocolate Milk Tea', but somehow when I try, I only really taste the chocolate.
Caramel seems somewhat recessive compared to the dominance of cacao. But, let's try anyway.
For this attempt, I wanted to have a Milk tea with sea salt, caramel and chocolate, to see if I could balance out the flavours. This means that I couldn't go by any recipe (300g of this, 2 spoons of that). I just had to wing it. It's more fun that way.
So, let's go
Step 1:
Put, oh I don't know, 2 bags of any English tea in a pot.
It's not like the bits will leak out or anything as a result of bubbl.ng water shaking it about too rigorously. It'll be fine.
Step 2:
Put some amount of water in the pot. In this case, this whole bottle was about 550ml. Boil it.
Step 3
Put a bunch of milk into the concoction until it looks more like milk than it does tea. That's what a milk tea basically is, as far as I'm aware.
Step 4
Put some cocoa powder in there. In previous attempts to go with actual dark chocolate, I find the drinks to be overly bitter no matter what sugary goodness I put in there. So I'm trying unsweetened powder this time.
Mix that shit in without it getting too clumpy. If there are any clumps just sieve them out later. Or keep them. I like to chew on them.
Step 5
Ah yes, the pièce de résistance!
Homemade Caramel!
Gosh darn it is so dang good.
Put like, 2 or 3 big dollops into the mix. or 4. Just make a note of how much, the point is to find a flavour balance.
Step 6
Add Sea Salt.
Historically, I always put too much salt in everything and ruin everything I make. So instead of going with teaspoons, which seems to have mystical powers forcing me to pile things onto it more than necessary, I decided to go with pinches.
3 pinches.
Step 7
Start working on whipped cream to top it off!
I found this USB single whisk for 17yuan! That's less than $3 (delivery included)! For an electric whisk!
Note: Unless you appreciate white-speckled decor in your kitchen, put the whisk in BEFORE you turn it on.
Step 8
Before finishing the whole thing off, make sure your cat jumps on top of the box of kibble before leaping away, kicking it off the countertop and spilling it all over the most difficult to clean up place in your home: Amongst, and inside, shoes and umbrellas, under the countertop and so on.
If you lack cats, you just have to suffer a life of stress-free calm instead. Sorry.
Final Step
After keeping it over the heat for a while, you should have yourself about a litre of whatever you threw together. Get a cup and pour some in, or if you're like me, just use a measuring jug. It's basically a cup. Americans call them measuring cups.
Get that cream on top and DON'T sprinkle cocoa powder on top like I did, unless you want cocoa lungs.
Drink up.
Results
As I suspected here, the chocolate kind of overwhelmed the flavour, even with no actual chocolate melted in.
However, it didn't overwhelm the salt or the tea. The tea was a weak presence, but certainly there. The Salt was suitably weak and present.
The caramel was hard to distinguish at all, unfortunately.
Overall it tasted... 5/10?
If the Chocolate was less dominant, I would easily have given it an 8/10.
However, I already feel confident it won't match the 15/10 I gave my coffee rendition any time soon.
Next time I'll use Dark Chocolate, but maybe stop at 50% rather than the 70-85% I've used in the past. I'll also probably more than half the amount I usually work with (50g instead of 100g) and hopefully I can get both flavours to come out.
Any secret recipes of a similar ilk should immediately be placed in the comments! No secrets allowed on the chain.
First, let me say that the post looks also nice on condenser (hive.blog). So no worry.
I hesitated to read it this time. Whereas I like salted caramel, I cannot stand Lattes. And “caramel hot chocolate” or “Caramel Chocolate Milk Tea” do not even sound more appealing to me. After checking what you did… this stays a big “no no” for me. Sorry :D
(I was about to tag @mathowl to solve the cat issue, but he already tagged himself well apparently ;) )
Hm, no sweet tooth, eh? That's a huge health advantage I suppose!
Honestly i've noticed over time my fondness for the trash food like Chocolate, Cola, etc, has been dying away. In my 20's I could still devour a couple of pizzas with coke, and have a large chocolate bar daily.
Now I go months without drinking much other than water, and a whole pizza kills me. I certainly don't feel healthier, even though I technically am...
I like sweet stuff, but more in a solid than in a liquid state. You know, physics plus the fact that solid are more ordered than liquids ;) But what is true is that with age, tastes change and go further away from the sweet region of the spectrum. I for instance like super-bitter chocolate. I also eat less.
I however do not know whether this is significant. The US would provide super counter-examples I guess.
Energy needs to be conserved so the monkey limit cannot be taken :3
I like the sea-salt-caramel-milk coffees from Luckin ^^
My life motto has been a lie =(
You know, I never went even though it's fairly ubiquitous. Tim's has a new orange-coffee drink I'm now binging ^__^
haha, I was laughing as I read, it seemed like your were telling me over the phone. Sorry about the mess the cat made. I think i can make this at home. the only thing missing is homemade caramel. I watch youtube videos on how to make that.
Heh, I tend to type exactly how I speak!
As annoying as the cat disaster was, it was a mild inconvenience compared to some of the things they do... -_-
I got my caramel idea from a website but it has a lot of variables for personal taste which I jumped on. Can't wait to make another batch!
I forgot to recommend mobbs an open case PC. That will further increase your cat stress =^..^=
As I've had fairly recent experience helping a friend build a computer in a case that was clearly too small... this gives me PTSD thanks -__-
Well if you use an open case, there is no boundary between your computer and the universe. Technically, your case is the universe.