By Carole Bloom
Caramel is one of my favourite ingredients. At its most basic, it's just sugar, but, depending on how long it has been cooked, it can be sweet, bitter or acrid; and depending on what other ingredients are added - if any, and in what quantities - it can be anywhere from crisp and brittle, to firm and chewy, to soft and pourable.
Carole Bloom loves caramel, too. I hesitated to buy her book because she lists ingredients using volume measurements and (occasionally) avoirdupois weights, rather than the easier and more precise metric weights, but I was won over by her recipes, which are varied and tempting.
Included are recipes for caramel sauce; dulce de leche; caramel mousse; chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel buttercream frosting; butterscotch pecan bundt cake; brown sugar toasted coconut angel food cake; caramel-apricot linzertorte; classic cream caramels; pistachio toffee; and caramelised white chocolate mini cakes.