Our caramel crunch made with salted butter is a premium product for use either as an inclusion or a topping in bars, chocolates, ice cream, gelato and patisserie. It has a sophisticated and intense caramel flavour and a rich colour. Produced by French company Nigay, "the expert in caramels", this is the ideal product for adding crunch, texture and indulgent flavour.

Nigay make it by cooking sugars with milk and salted butter until the caramel takes, then crushing and sieving the slab into flakes. Three quarters of what lands in the tub measures between 2 and 4mm, so it spreads evenly through a filling without anyone finding a shard. Salt sits at 0.5g per 100g, enough to lift the caramel and stop it being too sweet. It comes in a 500g tub or a 4kg tub.

What Does Salted Butter Caramel Crunch Taste Like? 

Cooked butter first, then caramel, then a clean salt finish. Nigay cook the dairy into the caramel itself, so it is a rounder flavour than a sugar caramel with salt added at the end, and the colour is deep enough to show on a white chocolate. It is dry and brittle to the tooth, at around 98.5% dry matter, which is where the crunch comes from.

How to Use Caramel Crunch 

Stir it into a ganache, a praline filling or a gianduja off the heat, around 5 to 10% of the batch, and pipe while it is still loose. Fold it through a gelato at the end of churning, or use it dry as a topping on a glazed entremet, a dipped bonbon or a bar mould before the chocolate sets. In a moulded bar, sprinkle it into the shell first so it holds against the back of the chocolate.

Tips & Troubleshooting 

The flakes are uncoated, so they draw in moisture. Keep the tub sealed, store at 20C or below, and use it up once it is open. Add it to anything wet at the last moment, and where a filling needs to keep its crunch for weeks, seal the flakes inside chocolate. Best before is 12 months from production.

Pairings and Ideas 

Salted butter caramel works with milk and dark chocolate, hazelnut, pecan, apple, banana, coffee, vanilla and whisky. A few ideas to try:

• Scattered into a bar mould before the milk chocolate shell is cast
• Folded through a hazelnut gianduja for a crunchy praline filling
• Stirred into a vanilla gelato at the end of churning
• Sprinkled over a glazed chocolate entremet at the last minute
• Layered between a biscuit base and a caramel ganache
• Pressed onto the sides of a salted caramel torte
• Mixed into a white chocolate ganache for a bonbon with a bite