Thursday, October 27, 2011

We also had deep fried bacon

You know, I'm no trendspotter, but I think that salted caramel has jumped the shark. That doesn't mean that I don't love it, oh no it does not. But I'm realizing that it is everywhere, and in increasingly shitty iterations. It's definitely a dessert buzz word that those crafty restaurant folk realize will get people to fork over an extra fifteen bucks at the end of a meal. Maybe they'll do it for the same reason that my husband and I did recently, in an attempt to salvage an underwhelming and overpriced meal. John Howie, I'm looking at you. Or maybe it's just because salted caramel is guaranteed to be at least as delicious as an Oreo, and could potentially be, like, fifteen thousand times better. And if you disagree with me on that point, well, I'm not sure you and I were ever that good of friends.

So even though I'm kind of sick of hearing myself talk about it, I made salted caramel chocolate pretzel bark last weekend. It was good. Damn good. But it was sort of like how I imagine heroin is - I felt awesome eating it until I felt sick, and then I felt sick until I ate it again. It is definitely meant for small doses. And I think it counts as a small dose to crush it and blend it into some vanilla ice cream.

The next salted caramel dessert I want to try to make? Salted caramel apple pie. Or maybe salted caramel pumpkin cheesecake, which I saw demonstrated on local tv last weekend. Or maybe I'll just read all the blogs from 2009 talking about such recipes and call it a day.

2 comments:

Layne said...

I had not considered the ice cream application--I will replicate and attempt in a vanilla shake.

I think your description of eat it until you're sick, then feel sick until you eat it again is very apt. I have noticed this effect with fudge.

Salted caramel is the first truly good idea the treat industry has had in a while, so it makes sense that they would beat it until it is stripped of all nuance. But it does beg the question: did people ever NOT salt their caramel? Or just not as heavily?

tipsybaker said...

True. I love it, but I'm sick of it. And just the word "salted" affixed to "caramel" means you'll pay extra for your dessert, which is strange because salt is basically free. A caramel tart is $5 but a SALTED caramel tart is $9.