Copy of The Kitchen

Early batches of McCrea’s Candies caramel were cooked in a home kitchen using a wooden spoon, a few pots and pans, and a candy thermometer.

Soon the pots and pans were too small, the kitchen inadequate, and the wooden spoon just a memory. 

Today, we cook caramel in a commercial kitchen full of energy, creativity, music and the aroma of melting sugar mingled with fresh cream. Sometimes sweet basil permeates the air, or the pungent sting caused by juicing fresh ginger wafts on air-currents and wakes up the senses.

The science to making caramel is, well, a science…a gentle balance between ingredients and heat that yields the perfect outcome.  We glory in the beauty of natural reactions. The process is fascinating to watch. Bubbles change size as temperature increases. Aroma develops and evolves. Hot sugar flies out of the kettle as those bubbles burst predictably at just the right temperature. We wait patiently as the caramel cooks to perfection.

Everything arrives fresh daily. We start with the best butter and sugar and slow cook it in beautiful copper kettles to just the right temperature.  Milk is slowly added as are real-food flavorings – rosemary right off the sprig, deep, rich  chocolate, fair-trade vanilla, organic maple syrup and Highland Scotch direct from the bottle.  That’s when the aroma floats out of the kitchen and just grabs you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From there, we pour out the lustrous caramel into sheets, hand roll it and send it through a vintage cutting and wrapping machine. The machine looks to be a complicated contraption as noisy clangs fill the shop. However, we are able to wrap the morning’s batch of caramel in biodegradable cellophane wrappers in a matter of seconds.

The process is amazing; flavor can’t be rushed. There’s no way to fake it, the mouth knows. The look on a person’s face who tastes our caramel for the first time. Inspiring.

 

 

McCrea’s Candies started with the simple idea that good candy must be made with good ingredients. With fresh milk, cream and butter, the finest salts, spirits and seasonings, we’ve created 16 striking flavors and we did it with the fewest possible ingredients.

Our quest: find perfect combinations of smooth, sweet, fresh, and unexpected using the fewest possible ingredients. Our mission: make the world's best caramel.