Sugar Savvy

Salt and sugar is an odd but excellent combination. Das Foods highlights the combo in their line of French Salted Caramels, from which I had the pleasure of sampling the Lemon and Honey flavor.

These arrived the day after Thanksgiving, when I should have been too stuffed to taste them, but I couldn’t resist once I opened the package and was hit with the lemon scent. It reminded me of sugar cookies: sugar and fresh lemon zest.

I was immediately impressed by the ingredients: Cream, Cane Sugar, Rice Syrup, Honey, Butter, Lemongrass, Lemon Peel, Fleur de Sel, and Ground Green Pepper. Yes, there is real butter in here, and it stands out in the flavor. These caramels are creamy and buttery. They are also slightly greasy, but that’s okay, because it’s due to butter rather than hydrogenated oils.

There is a bite of salt at the beginning, but it mellows out. The salt does a great job of enhancing the other flavors, but it’s really the lemon that’s the star of this show. It’s not too tart or sour, but nicely balanced by the honey.

The texture of these is dependent on the temperature. On an 80 degree day they were quite soft, but they had firmed by the next day, when it was only 60 degrees out. In any case, they are nice and chewy. I didn’t have a problem with these sticking to my teeth, however. The excess just melts away.

I really enjoyed these and think they would make excellent stocking stuffers.