Hard Caramel melted in fridge??

I made a caramel sauce on the stove top for the first time, using just sugar and water method. After it was done I dipped profiteroles into it, to give them a hard caramel top. Which worked but when I out them in the fridge the next day the caramel was not hard but had melted(?) And absorbed into the dough. It ended up still tasting great but just very confused on how it changed consistency

Madie
  • Posted by: Madie
  • March 26, 2019
  • 11477 views
  • 2 Comments

2 Comments

Lori T.
Lori T. March 26, 2019
Ordinary sugar is sucrose, which is a polar molecule. That means it has a positive charged side and a negatively charged side. Water molecules have the same arrangement. So they are drawn to one another, an opposite poles attraction kind of thing. The sugar in your caramel is a super-concentrated solution, a bit more crowded that it would care to be. So as soon as it had the chance, it started absorbing water from where ever it could get it. In your case, it probably took some from the profiterole and the filling, and whatever was floating around in your fridge. It would do the same thing if left at room temperature in the open air, but it would probably take longer to soften unless it was really humid in the room. You take advantage of this tendency when you make flan, or an upside down cake.
 
Liz D.
Liz D. March 26, 2019
Sugar attracts moisture, so it may have taken on moisture from the profiteroles, or from something else in the fridge?
 
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