Caramel Isn’t Just for Pancakes: 10 Combinations That Sound Weird but Work
Caramel Isn’t Just for Pancakes: 10 Combinations That Sound Weird but Work
Caramel and pancakes. Caramel and ice cream. Caramel and cheesecake.
Safe. Tried and tested. Delicious.
And also a little boring.
Because caramel can do much more interesting things.
It can tame bitterness, enhance savoury flavours, complement acidity, and it gets along remarkably well with fat, smoky flavours and chilli. And once you stop treating it as nothing more than a dessert topping, some pretty interesting things start to happen.
We’ve picked ten combinations that may look slightly suspicious at first glance.
But we’re not asking you to take our word for it.
Try them yourself. If you dare. :-)
And we’ll even show you how to put them together on the plate.
One small note before we begin: whenever we simply say Caramel, we mean our original version. For some combinations, however, salted or chilli Karamílek works just as well – or gives you something completely different. We’ll point those out as we go.
We’ll start gently.
With roast pork.
1. Roast Pork + Caramel + Chilli
Yes. We’re starting with a pig.
And before someone confiscates our confectioner’s licence, we actually have a pretty good alibi. Combining caramel with pork isn’t some modern culinary madness. Caramel is commonly used with pork in Vietnamese cuisine – a different kind of caramel, of course, because they haven’t discovered our Karamílek yet.
And flavour-wise, it makes perfect sense.
Pork brings fat, salt and rich roasted flavours. A little caramel adds sweetness and a touch of bitterness, chilli gives the whole mouthful a kick, and something acidic lightens everything up again.
The important word here is a little.
We’re not trying to turn the pig into a cream puff.
Both original caramel and chilli caramel work here. The first gives you a stronger sweet-and-savoury contrast; the second adds a little heat at the end.
How to serve it
Take two or three thin slices of warm roast pork and overlap them slightly. Add a few small drops of Karamílek, a couple of flakes of salt and – if you’re using the original version – one very thin slice of chilli. Add something acidic on the side, such as a few very thin slices of pickled onion.
Then taste everything together.
So? Do you believe us now?
2. Blue Cheese + Pear + Caramel
After the pig, let’s have something a little more refined.
Blue cheese. With caramel.
This time we’re on relatively safe culinary ground. Strong cheeses are commonly paired with honey, figs, pears or sweet chutneys. Caramel does a similar job here, but adds its own toasted, slightly bitter flavour.
Blue cheese is salty, rich and bold. Pear brings freshness and juiciness, caramel adds sweetness, and walnuts bring the crunch.
The result tastes considerably less strange than it sounds.
How to serve it
Slice the pear very thinly and arrange three or four slices into a small fan. Add a few pieces of blue cheese or Gorgonzola and a few walnut halves. Drizzle a few thin lines of caramel over the pear.
Don’t drown it. We’re not trying to submerge the whole thing in caramel.
And if you want to find out exactly what the caramel is doing here, first try a bite of cheese and pear on their own, then try the same thing with a little caramel.
You’ll taste the difference.
3. Chips + Salted Caramel
All right.
Now we’re being weird again.
Chips have everything caramel doesn’t: they’re salty, starchy and crispy. Salted caramel is sweet, creamy and slightly bitter. And they share one very useful quality:
Stopping after one is surprisingly difficult.
The principle isn’t particularly exotic. Sweet and salty flavours enhance one another, while the contrast between hot, crispy chips and creamy caramel does the rest.
Just don’t bathe the chips in it. We want them to stay crispy. We’re not barbarians.
How to serve it
Let’s admit that chips and caramel alone aren’t going to produce a masterpiece of fine-dining presentation. As a snack in front of the TV, though, they’re brilliant.
Use thin, properly crispy chips and salt them well. Put them in a small paper cone, a glass or simply a neat little pile, with a small bowl of salted caramel alongside.
And since we’re already having chips, add another little bowl of good homemade tartare sauce. Dip one chip into the classic, the next into the caramel, and alternate according to your mood.
Let’s see which bowl empties first.
4. Vanilla Ice Cream + Chilli Caramel + Olive Oil
Ice cream with caramel isn’t going to shock anyone.
So let’s add chilli and olive oil.
Vanilla ice cream is sweet, rich and fairly delicate in flavour, which means it can handle surprisingly bold companions. Chilli adds heat that arrives after the sweetness, while a good extra virgin olive oil brings fruity, slightly bitter and sometimes even peppery notes.
And salt? That ties the whole thing together.
The result does not taste like salad. We promise.
How to serve it
Place one nice scoop of good-quality vanilla ice cream in the centre of a small bowl or deep plate. Let some chilli caramel run over it, add a few drops of good olive oil and finish with a few flakes of salt.
Go easy on the oil at first. You can always add more.
Removing olive oil from ice cream is considerably more complicated.
5. Seared Grapefruit + Caramel + Coriander
Grapefruit has one quality we don’t generally look for in fruit.
It’s bitter.
Which is exactly why we’re interested in it.
Next to sweet caramel, that bitterness stops being a problem and becomes part of the fun. A quick sear adds toasted notes, while the grapefruit stays fresh and acidic inside.
Toasted pistachios bring crunch and a delicate nuttiness, a few flakes of salt sharpen the contrast, and coriander adds a fresh citrusy, herbal note.
Yes, coriander.
If we’ve already put caramel on a pig, it would be a shame to get scared now.
How to serve it
Separate the grapefruit into segments and remove the skin and as much of the white pith as possible. Sear the segments briefly in a very hot pan, just long enough to give them a little colour in places.
Arrange three or four grapefruit segments on a matt black plate and drizzle a few thin lines of caramel over them. Add a few flakes of salt, roughly chopped toasted pistachios and a few small coriander leaves.
And this time the black plate isn’t culinary showing off.
It’s simply going to look damn good.
6. Popcorn + Caramel + Parmesan
Popcorn with caramel is normal.
Popcorn with Parmesan is normal too.
So obviously we’re going to do both at once.
And surprisingly, the two sides don’t fight. Parmesan is intensely salty and packed with umami, while caramel brings sweetness and lightly toasted notes.
The ratio matters, though. Parmesan has plenty of confidence and doesn’t need much room.
How to serve it
Lightly salt freshly popped hot popcorn and toss it with a little finely grated Parmesan.
Finally, drizzle caramel irregularly over the popcorn. We’re not coating every piece like traditional caramel popcorn – we want some bites to be cheesier, some sweeter, and every now and then you’ll get both at once.
Tip it into a large bowl and put it in the middle of the table.
No plates required. No dignity either.
7. Bacon + Caramel + Tart Apple
By now you may have noticed that we have a bit of a weakness for the combination of fat, salt and caramel.
We do.
Crispy bacon brings salt, fat and smoky flavours. Caramel adds sweetness, while tart apple does exactly what we need it to do – freshens up the whole bite and stops it turning into a heavy sweet-and-fatty overload.
You can use original caramel here, but chilli caramel works extremely well too.
And best of all: we can fit everything into a single bite.
How to serve it
Fry the bacon until properly crisp and break it into smaller pieces. Cut a firm, tart apple into thin wedges.
Place a piece of bacon on each apple wedge and add a small drizzle of Karamílek. Top with a few tiny thyme leaves or the tiniest amount of freshly ground black pepper.
Arrange them with a little space between each one on a simple plate or board and you’ve got bite-sized snacks that look far more innocent than they taste.
And one practical piece of advice:
Make more than you think is reasonable.
8. Roast Carrots + Caramel + Goat’s Cheese + Pomegranate
Yes, we’ve already put caramel on meat, cheese, fruit, chips and popcorn.
So now it’s vegetables.
Carrots are cheating a little, though. Roasting makes them naturally sweeter and gives them browned, toasted flavours on the outside, so they’re much closer to caramel than their membership of the vegetable family might suggest.
Which is exactly why they need some opposition.
Goat’s cheese adds saltiness and a slight tang, pomegranate brings fresh acidity and juicy crunch. The caramel ties everything together – but it still shouldn’t turn the carrots into dessert.
How to serve it
Use smaller carrots, ideally with a little of the green tops still attached, and roast them whole with a little oil and salt until tender and nicely browned.
Arrange three or four carrots slightly overlapping on a large light-coloured plate. Crumble goat’s cheese between them, drizzle a few thin lines of caramel over the carrots and finish with pomegranate seeds.
Let a few fall around the plate as well.
Don’t tidy them up this time.
For the first time in this article, the mess is part of the presentation.
9. Warm Pretzel + Caramel + Mature Cheddar + Mustard
Warm pretzel. Coarse salt. Mature cheddar. Mustard.
And Karamílek.
One of these five has just turned up at a party it wasn’t invited to.
And surprisingly, it gets along rather well with everyone else.
Warm bread with a browned crust and crystals of salt makes a surprisingly good base for sweetness. Mature cheddar brings a strong salty and slightly sharp flavour, caramel adds a sweet contrast, and mustard contributes acidity and bite.
Both original caramel and chilli caramel work here. And if you happen to have both, we see absolutely no reason to choose for you.
How to serve it
Use one large soft pretzel and warm it briefly before serving so that it’s slightly crisp on the outside and soft inside.
Place it on a board with a few irregular chunks or thin slices of mature cheddar. Add a small bowl of wholegrain Dijon mustard and another of Karamílek. If you want to compare the original and chilli versions, you’ll need three bowls.
Then simply tear off pieces of warm pretzel, add cheddar and experiment with different combinations.
And if you open a beer to go with it, we certainly won’t stop you.
We are from Plzeň, after all.
10. Prawns + Caramel + Chilli + Lime
And we’ve reached the finale.
Prawns. With caramel.
By now, perhaps you’re not even that surprised.
Prawns have a naturally slightly sweet flavour, so caramel isn’t quite as alien a companion as it might first seem. But we need to balance that sweetness. Lime brings acidity and freshness, chilli adds heat, and salt brings out the flavour of the prawns themselves.
The result shouldn’t be a sweet prawn.
It should be a juicy, seared prawn where you taste the caramel first, then the lime, and finally the chilli.
And here we’ll go straight for chilli caramel. If you don’t have it, use original caramel and add a little fresh chilli separately.
How to serve it
Sear large prawns briefly in a very hot pan so they develop some colour while staying juicy.
Arrange three prawns on a plate, slightly overlapping or in a curve. Drizzle a few thin lines of chilli Karamílek over them and add a squeeze of fresh lime juice.
Place two small lime wedges alongside and add a few very thin slices of red chilli.
And stop.
There’s no need to prove that we own any more ingredients.
So Where Does Caramel Actually Belong?
Honestly?
Wherever you think it tastes good.
Some of the sweet-and-savoury combinations in this article have relatives in traditional cuisines; others simply make use of contrasts that work beautifully together. And some are worth trying simply because life is too short to keep putting caramel only on pancakes.
You don’t have to believe us.
In fact, right at the beginning we recommended the exact opposite.
Try it.
And if you discover a combination that makes us stop in our tracks at first and then reach for another bite, let us know.
Because we have a sneaking suspicion that ten is nowhere near the end of it.