Salted Butter Caramel Rolos are a favourite recipe from Hawksmoor. We’ll show you how to make Salt Caramel Rolos at home using a Heston Blumenthal recipe.
Have a look at these, the marvellous and rightly famous Salted Caramel Rolos they serve at Hawksmoor, first seen at Air Street.
Now look at this pitiful thing…
It’s also a Hawksmoor Salt Caramel Rolo. Like those beautiful chocolates in the photo above we also got it Air Street, but ours (wrapped to take away because we were stuffed) spent about 3 hours on the floor of the Prince of Wales Theatre, then a further 5 hours travelling by tube and car back to the North West.
Luckily we did get to try them a few days later when we went back to Seven Dials during Frightfest. They’re just as amazing and delicious as you’ve heard.
By adapting Heston Blumenthal’s Salt Butter Caramel Millionaire Shortbread recipe and using a cheap silicone chocolate mould we reckon we’ve come up with the perfect way to get a Salt Caramel Rolo fix without having to go all the way to central London.
Here’s our Heston Blumenthal Salted Caramel Rolos recipe.
SUMMARY
Recipes: Heston Blumenthal’s Salted Butter Caramel Rolo recipe
Special Equipment: Silicone Chocolate Mould, Digital Probe Thermometer
Special Ingredients: Liquid Glucose
Time: 2 – 4 hours
Cost: £4
Serves: Makes 15 chocolates (enough Salted Caramel to make 30 chocolates)
Difficulty: Medium
INGREDIENTS
- 125g dark chocolate
- 95g whole milk
- 95g liquid glucose
- 95g white caster sugar
- 75g butter
- 1/2tsp salt
- 100g double cream
METHOD
- Melt the chocolate in the microwave or bain marie
- Using a jug pour the chocolate into the silicone mould
- Swirl chocolate around to evenly coat inside of each mould
- Hang the mould over the jug and allow the excess chocolate to pour back into it
- Transfer chocolate filled moulds to refrigerator to set
- Combine butter, sugar, milk, salt and liquid glucose in a pan
- Place over a high heat.
- Bring mixture to 100°C, stirring regularly with a spatula
- Lower heat to medium.
- Switch to stirring constantly with a whisk
- Heat until 153°C is reached
- Immediately remove pan from heat
- Add cream in 3 stages, stirring until combined
- Transfer caramel to a bowl to cool
- When almost room temperature transfer caramel to a piping bag
- Pipe caramel into filled chocolate moulds
- Allow caramel to settle flat
- Re-melt remaining chocolate and spread over moulds to fill
- Transfer filled moulds to fridge or freezer to set
- When set remove the salted caramel rolos carefully from the moulds and serve
- Keep refrigerated if not serving immediately
REPORT
Step 1: Melting Chocolate
We were always sceptical about using a microwave to melt chocolate (after a horrible-smelling childhood experiment). But when it came time to make Heston’s Black Forest Gateau recipe it was an essential shortcut.
This method really works! You just need to keep giving the chocolate 30 second bursts, stirring after each one. Our chocolate took about 2 minutes in total to melt, and there was no faffing on with bain maries.
Steps 2 – 5: Filling the Moulds
We really ought to have looked up a YouTube video for hints before embarking on this Heston Salted Caramel Rolo recipe, but we figured we’d be able to wing it.
Transfer the chocolate to a jug and pour it into your silicone mould (ours was a couple of quid off eBay – we even went for one with a Rolo-esque shape to it).
We couldn’t quite fill the moulds to the top with our 125g of melted chocolate, so try to get them all filled evenly (this is why a jug is ideal). You’ll need to tilt them in a few different directions to get the chocolate to swirl about and coat the moulds evenly.
Once that’s done just hold the mould back over the jug by one end and let the chocolate run down it. Save that jug and the remaining chocolate for finishing the Salted Caramel Rolos. It doesn’t matter if it sets.
Steps 6 – 12: Making the Salted Caramel
The most essential part of our Salted Caramel Rolos recipe is the actual salted caramel. We’re using Heston’s own Salt Caramel recipe from his book Heston at Home.
To start simply weigh butter, sugar, liquid glucose, milk and salt into a pan. This is very easy as you can just put the pan on the scale, start adding ingredients and keep hitting zero.
Put the pan on a high heat and start to stir with a spatula. A digital probe thermometer is essential for this next bit.
Above 100°C you’ll need to switch to a whisk and stir constantly and quickly. The mixture will hover around the 106°C mark for a while and bubble a lot. That’s all of the water content in the liquids being boiled off.
Turn the heat down to make sure the caramel doesn’t catch and burn. Be sure you get the whisk right into the corners of the pan.
When that water is gone the mixture will take on a more foamy appearance. Be sure to keep whisking and be certain to get into the corners. The split second your temperature hits 153°C remove the pan from the heat (Don’t be an idiot and stop to take pictures. Ahem).
Add the cream in three stages, whisking each time until fully incorporated. Be careful, a lot of steam will come off the mixture during the first couple of additions.
And there’s the salted butter caramel ready for your Heston Blumenthal Hawksmoor Salted Caramel Rolo recipe. Transfer it to a bowl to cool it down.
Steps 15 – 17: Filling the Moulds
Unless you’ve done something very weird then by the time your salted caramel recipe has cooled your prepared chocolate-lined silicone moulds will have set.
Using a spoon works well enough, though it can be a little bit messy. Easier by far is to use a piping bag. Or, in our case, a food saver bag with a tiny bit of one corner snipped off. I’m crap at piping and even I managed to do this bit ok.
There’ll be a spike of caramel from when you stop piping. Be sure to leave a little bit of space for this to settle flat into. And make sure your moulds have enough space in them to fill with the final bottom layer of chocolate.
Steps 18 – 21: Finishing and Serving
Remember that jug from earlier, the one with the remaining chocolate in it? I guarantee you that chocolate is now set rock solid. Not to worry, you can just pop it in the microwave using our trick from earlier. Keep checking and stirring until its melted.
Now our this over the filled Salted Caramel Rolo moulds and spread the mixture out evenly with a spatula or palette knife.
Back in the fridge or freezer to set. Once done pop them out carefully. Try to pull away the edges of the mould rather than pushing in the centre of each chocolate. This means less chance of them breaking. If you’re not very practised at this then losing 2 or 3 at this stage is perfectly acceptable (i.e. that’s what happened to us).
You may need to trim away some rough edges of chocolate from where the moulds over-filled. We’d recommend keeping them refrigerated until serving, unless you want them to turn out like the ones we brought home from London.
Congratulations! You’ve just made Heston’s Hawksmoor-style Salted Caramel Rolo recipe!
VERDICT
We’re pretty proud of this Heston-inspired, Hawksmoor-style Salted Butter Caramel Rolo recipe.
We’ll admit that these aren’t a true copy of the Salted Caramel Rolos they serve at Hawksmoor, but we reckon that we’ve come pretty close. They’re delicious too, and much easier to make than we were expecting.
They’re seriously addictive too. We’ve tried to hide it, but this batch of Heston recipe Salt Butter Caramel Rolos dwindled from 15 to 8 in the time it took to take these pictures.
We reckon these would be brilliant to snack on after dinner, make ideal Christmas gifts, or just be a fun thing for a couple of greedy people to keep all to themselves.
One things for certain, we’ll be making more of these soon. We might even share them next time.
NOTES
- Our caramel was a little bit dark, we’d remove it from the heat at around 147°C for a lighter taste and appearance.
- Our chocolate had a matte finish by not being tempered. All the Hawksmoor Salted Caramel Rolos we’ve been served (or seen on blogs) have a similar matte finish. But, for a glossy, crispy, shine we’d suggest tempering your chocolate, if you’d like that.
- For a darker, richer flavour you could change some or all of the sugar for darker sugars. Like the Muscovado caramels from Waitrose.
- If you run out of liquid glucose, or fancy a slightly different flavour, try using golden syrup.
- For a more gooey centre replace more of the caster sugar with glucose.
Have you tried the Hawksmoor Salted Caramel Rolos? Or have you got a favourite salt caramel recipe of your own that you think we ought to try? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section.
Nice! I too have returned from Hawksmoor with a crushed salted caramel rolo, so I feel your pain! This recipe looks amazing and I will definitely be trying it out at some point over Christmas. The bit where you said it was easier than you thought was the clincher!
http://www.foodfashfit.com
I would never have made these if I had read about them in a book or magazine, but I tried them and amazingly they worked – http://www.collinsx.com/blog/rolos.jpg. Great recipe, thanks for writing it up.
Hi James!
Awesome results. Your chocolates look stunning. Did you temper the chocolate, yours have a much nicer glossy sheen than ours. Beautiful work!
I had these at Hawksmoor in Seven Dials the other day. Instant addiction! Now I’m back home in Spain and I can’t wait to make these babies!
Right, I’m making these now. Couldn’t get the caramel to go about 110 C – maybe because I’m in Madrid at an altitude of about 800m. It was beginning to look, feel and smell like toffee, so I quit at that point. Will let you know what happens!
Hi Keefieboy!
Really glad you enjoyed Hawksmoor and flattered you took the time to read our blog.
Sounds like you were on exactly the right track with the caramel, but came across one of the things that puzzled us too. (And shows up this reciep as being more Heston than Hawksmoor, I’m afraid).
Heston’s caramel is going to turn out a LOT thicker than the gooey, liquid Hawksmoor stuff. You can see in the pics that ours has that original childhood-Rolo toffee texture you talk about. It’s quite thick, coming from a Heston recipe mainly intended for things like Millionaire shortbread, where that quality is required. We haven’t experimented yet, but it’s entirely possible you could play around with the liquid content to create a runnier caramel – perhaps using more glucose and less dry sugar?
As far as the temperature goes, we hit a fairly sizable stumbling block with this on our first attempt. We’d found we couldn’t get above 108 degrees centigrade. For us this turned out to be down to the remaining water content. As there was still water present in the mix we couldn’t get to the final temp until all the water had been boiled off, a process that took us about 3 full minutes, and it felt uncomfortably much longer.
Really looking forward to seeing how these turn out. Please post a link and comment with any advice or adaptations you’d recommend! 🙂
Well, the 8 Rolo shaped ones were fine, but gone before I could take photos (shakes head, claims not to know how that happened). There’s about 18 heart-shaped ones locked in the fridge, which I shall examine in the morning and report back on!
Here’s my recipe and video: http://www.keefcooks.com/salted-caramel-rolos-recipe/ – I really think that 153 degree thing is a mistake for the caramel, but I’m dead chuffed with how they turned out actually.
Hi,
These look amazing – can’t wait to try making them.
How long does the salted caramel last for? I’m making chocolate hampers for Christmas and want to get a head start.
Thanks in advance for you help.
Amanda
Hi Amanda!
Thanks for reading and very honoured you trust us enough to give them a try. We can guarantee they always please a crowd though! (I say crowd, two people can polish off all 15 in a matter of minutes, I have seen this happen).
The only truly perishable ingredient is the cream, and that’s encased in salt and sugar, both of which are preservatives. I’d say you can probably get a shelf life of about a month, double if you store them in the freezer until you’re ready to box up.
I’m not gonna lie to you though, unless you are an absolute wizard at chocolate tempering (I’m not) then these rolos will always be happiest living in the fridge. Suggest your recipients “serve chilled for best results”.
Good luck making them and please, please let us know how you get on. Photos are always appreciated! 🙂