Holiday Treats - Salted Caramel Lays Chips

This year Lay's has brought us a new Limited Time Flavor just for the holidays! Today we're tasting Lay's Salted Caramel chips. 

This reminds me of those Salted Caramel Pringles we had back in 2015. 

We always like to taste these along with the items they're supposed to represent. I could have taken pre-made caramels and put salt on them, but what's the fun in that? 

This has been a year of doing new things in the kitchen, and I've never made Salted Caramels at home before, but I'm good at following directions and this one doesn't look too difficult. 

My recipe comes from inspiredtaste.net for "How to Make the Best Salted Caramels at Home". 

There's just 6 ingredients. Cream, Butter, Sugar, Corn Syrup, Salt, and Water. 

The water, sugar, and corn syrup get mixed in a pot. 

Once it starts boiling, a lid goes on to melt any sugar on the sides to help prevent crystallization. 

The sugar goes from this color when it first starts out. 

To a pale amber at 320F. Stop here and it'll be a soft caramel. Go higher and it'll be more chewy.  

Hot butter and cream get poured in slowly and then the temperature is raised 240F. 

The bubbling mixture goes into a greased pan lined with parchment. 

After cooling for 30 minutes, I dusted the top with Kosher salt. Then it sits for another few hours to cool completely. 

I buttered a knife to better cut rectangles of the soft caramel. 

So is it pronounced Caramel or Caramel? Turns out that even in this house there's division. 

There's an interesting article that talks about how if you're from the UK, you might give more emphasis to the care part of care-a-melle. If you lean more to a US pronunciation, it might be car-muhl. 

These chips promise to be Sweet, Salty, and Crispy. 

My caramel is cooled, salted, and ready to go. It's very soft. 

When I suggested this taste test, Ian convinced himself that he wasn't going to like these chips. Look at this face he's giving before he even puts it in his mouth. 

And then the realization that he was wrong, that these chips are actually pretty tasty. 

These taste similar to what I remember the Salted Caramel Pringles tasting like, except these are a lot less salty. I really enjoy the caramel flavor that these are giving off. I'm not going to be eating an entire bag of them, but a couple chips here and there are a welcome change. 

The homemade salted caramel I made is gooey and stretchy. It's smooth, creamy, and buttery, and it's a really good recipe. The only change I would make for next time would be to make it a little more firm and chewy. 

Theresa said it's the best flavor caramel she's ever tasted, though she would also like it more firm. 

Thumbs up for both the chips and the caramels!