Candy Bar Lab

I’ve formed a habit of looking for candy bars wherever I go. The other day, I was in a costume store looking for a Halloween getup and found myself scanning the candy stacked up at the checkout counter. Amongst the Gummy Flesh Fries and Sour Mud Worms, I spotted an odd looking candy bar - the Rainbow Coconut Bar. The bright colored packaging includes the tagline “Pure Coconut for Pure enjoyment!” and a quick scan of the ingredients shows that it’s almost entirely made of coconut.

Structure
A solid slab of coconut, sugar, salt and corn syrup pressed together. It’s not quite a rainbow, but it is striped on either side with red food coloring.

Texture
It’s tough to bite through, as the coconut has been pretty tightly compressed. Once you get a bite in your mouth, you’ll notice it’s chewy and a bit dry.

Taste
I was expecting the Rainbow Coconut Bar to be really sweet. It’s actually not at all. The sugar content is relatively low and this allows real coconut flavor to poke through. Some bites are a little salty which I would normally like, but didn’t quite work here.

Verdict
I admit, when I purchased this candy bar, I was already expecting a dud. I bought it because it was different and I thought it would be fun to blog about. Even though I’m giving it a thumbs down, it surpassed my expectations. Ultimately though, this candy bar is too one-dimensional (only coconut) to get a positive review. I’ll still reach for an Almond Joy next time I want a coconut fix.

This is the type of caramel you’d find in Twix or Snickers.

If you’ve ever researched caramel recipes, you may have come across some like this. I’m not a fan of this method. In fact, I don’t even consider it real caramel because the sugar never actually caramelizes. Instead, this method relies on vanilla extract for flavor and gets it’s color only from the Maillard reaction of the heated amino acids in the cream and butter.

The recipe below is darker in color with a fuller flavor, yet remains soft and won’t stick to your teeth.

Ingredients
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup corn syrup
• 1/2 cup water
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 tbsp salt

Equipment
• 2 or 3 quart, heavy-bottomed pot
• candy thermometer
• whisk

Step 1: Prep
Get all of your ingredients out and measure everything ahead of time. We’ll move quickly through the last step, so you won’t have time to measure then. Also, it helps to cut the butter into four 1-tbsp pieces and mix the salt into the cream.

Step 2: Caramelize the sugars
In the pot, mix the sugar, corn syrup, and water over low heat with a whisk until the sugar is completely dissolved. Raise heat to high and boil mixture up to 315° F. Remove from heat and swirl the pot gently. You’ll notice the mixture start to darken a bit. The residual heat will bump the temperature to 320° F, the point of caramelization for sucrose.

Step 3: Incorporate the fats
If we stopped at this point and let the mixture cool, we would have a hard mass of dark sugar. To turn this into the soft caramel we’re looking for, we need to introduce some fat (i.e. the cream and butter). Drop the butter pieces into the pot and whisk until the butter is incorporated. Next, pour in the salted cream and again, whisk until blended. Note: The butter and cream both have water, so they will cause the pot to bubble up and release very hot steam. Make sure to wear an oven mitt to protect your hands and forearms.

Step 4: Cool
The caramel will thicken as it cools. If you’ve done everything correctly though, it should remain soft and gooey at room temperature.