Sugar Free Salted Caramels

So if you know me, you'd know that I have a HUGE sweet tooth. I love sugar! The only thing is, sugar isn't good for your body, your skin, your teeth. Etc. This sucks when you are craving a sweet treat and all you want to do is dig into a big fat chocolate bar. I've finally learnt how to satisfy my sweet cravings in a healthy way- by creating sweet treats that don't have sugar in (and no, it isn't magic).

Now I love Caramels! When it comes to Christmas and we have a tin of Quality Street I dip straight in for that caramel one. So I didn't have high hopes for this recipe form Hemsely and Hemsely, I mean nothing can beat a proper caramel, right?
Wrong! Wow, they are the nicest things ever!

The main ingredient you need to make these caramels is apricots. Yep. I know. But I need your trust here. Now when you get the apricots, make sure you get the right ones!! I need to really stress that you have to get the organic un-sulphured apricots. These are the ones that are brown, not orange. They will be the ones that have this rich caramel flavour and blend beautifully. I found these actually really hard to find, but after searching I managed to get them in good old Waitrose- and my ones a tiny Waitrose so I'm confident they will have them in most of their stores. (I also saw some in Sainsbury's too, for the exact same price, but they weren't as easy to find.)

Right enough talking, time for the recipe right?

Ingredients

• 250g Organic Un-sulphured apricots
• 1 1/4 tsp of sea salt (I used pink salt, so only added a 1/4 tsp. Also if you use butter you have to take into consideration that it will probably be salted. You can always come back and add more salt, but you never want to over salt them!)
• 80g of coconut oil or butter. (I used Goats butter because we were very low on coconut oil, but also the butter gives a beautiful creaminess.)
• 2 tbsp of hot water. (We didn't need to use the water as the apricots we used were very moist, so I'd recommend adding the water at the end, if needed)
• 1 tsp of vanilla paste, or essence. ( I used vanilla powder because it's purer and has no sugar. So if you use vanilla powder, you use 1/4 tsp for every 1 tsp they ask. As it's much stronger.)
• 100-200g Dark chocolate (Ultimately if you want this completely sugar free, you can make homemade raw chocolate. I did this the second time round after eventually finding cocao butter. So once you get your hands on that,  keep a tight hold of it, and make the raw chocolate. Yummy. But if you can't find it, just melt dark chocolate like I have, or keep it chocolate free.)

Step 1. Chop the apricots so that they will be easier to blend. Then add them to your food processor along with the coconut oil or butter, vanilla, salt and hot water- if you're going to use it. (Although I'd say you should add it after you've blended, to see how smooth it is.) Then pulse blend the ingredients, scraping the side if necessary, until you have a smoothness you are happy with. 

Step 2. Take the mixture out, cover with clingfilm and put into the freezer for 10 minutes, so it can firm slightly.  (This step is optional but I recommend otherwise it will be VERY hard to handle.)

Step 3. Take out the mixture from the freezer and use a teaspoon to spoon to an amount, before rolling it between your hands into a little ball. Then place them on a lined baking sheet. Try to make them 1.5cm diameter each time, but it doesn't matter too much. It is all about personal taste. 

Step 4. Then freeze the balls for 20 minutes or more.

Step 5. Coming towards the end of the 20 minutes start melting your chocolate or making up your raw chocolate mix. 

Step 6. Once it's fully melted, get the balls out of the freezer. Use two teaspoons to dip the caramels making sure the are fully combined before placing them back on the tray. The beautiful thing is they will set really quickly on the cold tray. Do this to as many as you want, I didn't dip all of them in the chocolate just to see what they'd taste like. And with or without of chocolate, they still taste amazing.

Step 7. Pop in a tub-ware and put in the fridge. They are best served straight from the fridge. 

Step 8. ENJOY! Eat them without feeling guilty. They have this beautiful rich carmel flavour with his hint of fruitless from the apricot. Incredibly amazing, and I'm still trying to work out what makes them taste SO good.

If you're tempted to try this, print of this recipe and let me know what you thought of them! You could even tag me with your creation on Instagram or twitter.
It sounds harder and more complicated that it is- Essentially it's Apricots and butter mixed together with salt and covered in chocolate. So simple, but tastes so good!

-A,x