Salted Caramel Kelp Chocolate Bars

Move over, Dubai chocolate! There’s a new sweet obsession in town: our homemade salted caramel and kelp chocolate bars.

Yes, you read that right! In this recipe, we’ve combined the salty, umami flavour of kelp with the sweetness of caramel to create the ultimate gooey centre for a chocolate bar. It’s every bit as addictive as it sounds!

Servings: 2 large bars

Prep Time: ~40 mins

Ingredients

• 450g semi-sweet baking chocolate (around 60%, do not use chocolate chips)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 6 tbsp unsalted butter
• ½ cup heavy cream, at room temperature
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 ½ - 2 tbsp giant kelp mini flakes

Directions

Salted Kelp Caramel

1. Begin by making your caramel. Heat the sugar in a medium, heavy-based saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. The sugar will begin to melt into a thick brown, amber-coloured liquid as you stir. This should take around 5-6 minutes.
2. Once the sugar has melted, reduce the heat to low and stir in the butter. The caramel will bubble rapidly, so be careful. If the butter starts to separate from the sugar, remove the pan from the heat and whisk rapidly. After a few minutes, the butter will come back together.
3. Slowly pour in the cream, stirring constantly. Then, increase the heat to medium and let the caramel boil for 1 minute. Remove from the heat and stir in the salt and kelp. The caramel will continue to thicken as it cools. Allow to come to room temperature, then transfer to the fridge to become extra thick.

Preparing The Chocolates

1. Once the caramel has completely cooled, begin tempering the chocolate. Melt ⅔ of the chocolate over a double boiler until the temperature reaches approximately 120ºF. Remove the bowl from the double boiler and gradually add in the remaining chocolate, stirring constantly, until the temperature drops to around 82ºF. To speed up this process, you could place the chocolate over a second bowl of cold water. Be patient, as this can take around 10 minutes or so. Briefly bring the temperature of the chocolate back up to around 86-89ºF, then you’re ready to use.
2. Pour most of the melted chocolate into your silicone molds and tilt in all directions to ensure a relatively even layer covers all sides. Tip upside down over the chocolate bowl to remove any excess. Put them in the fridge to set for a minute or so.
3. Remove the molds and the caramel mixture from the fridge. Fill each mold with spoonfuls of the caramel sauce, being careful not to overfill (depending on how cool your caramel is, you may want to return the molds to the fridge for a few minutes until the caramel is completely set). Pour the remaining chocolate over the top of the caramel and use a spatula to quickly smooth and remove any excess.
4. Put the chocolate bars back in the fridge until the chocolate hardens, then turn them out and enjoy!

Notes

• We chose to temper our chocolate to get that satisfying snap, but you could also choose to skip this step and just melt the chocolate. We do, however, recommend buying high-quality chocolate and avoid chocolate chips.
• Don’t own or want to invest in chocolate bar molds? Try making smaller chocolate bites using a silicone muffin tin or fluted baking cups.
• A candy thermometer or a digital thermometer is a helpful tool, to ensure temperature accuracy.

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