What this salted caramel paste is
Salted caramel concentrate paste is a semi-finished product for gelato and pastry work: a dense cream made from caramel, condensed milk, butter, cream and sea salt, ready to be dosed into the mix or used as is. It is not a finished dessert nor a simple counter topping: it is a professional raw material that brings together, in a single ingredient, the sweet side of caramel and the savoury side of sea salt, already balanced. The gelato maker does not need to cook a caramel from scratch or dose salt by eye: the paste arrives ready, stable and even, in a 3 kg pail. Contains MILK.
Origin: Brittany, Henri Le Roux, 1977
Salted caramel was born in Brittany in 1977. In Quiberon, confectioner Henri Le Roux opens his own shop and looks for something that will set him apart: he thinks of a caramel made with salted butter, typical of the Breton region. He works on the recipe for months, searching for the exact balance between cooked sugar and Guérande sea salt, until he obtains a soft caramel enriched with crushed hazelnuts, walnuts and almonds. In 1980 his creation wins the award for the best confectionery in France at the international confectionery show in Paris, and Le Roux registers the CBS trademark, Caramel au Beurre Salé.
The sea salt of Mothia, from the Phoenician salt pans of Trapani
The sea salt used in this paste comes from the Stagnone of Trapani, the lagoon surrounding the island of Mozia, known in Phoenician as Mothia. Here, in the eighth century BC, the Phoenicians founded one of their key Mediterranean posts and laid out some of the oldest salt pans on record, thanks to the low coastline and dry climate. Since then salt harvesting has never stopped: it is still entrusted to the curatoli, the salt masters who manage the evaporation of the seawater and hand-harvest the crystals. It is a whole, unrefined sea salt, rich in minerals, which balances the sweetness of the caramel rather than simply seasoning it.
The producer: from liqueur to gelato, since 1959
Behind this paste is a long-established Palermo company, active since 1959. It started out producing spirits and liqueurs for the bars of Palermo, in a city where the bar was the centre of social life, and for years its trade stayed closer to spirits than to sweets. The turning point came with a flavour conceived as a liqueur, zuppa inglese, which proved ideal once taken into gelato: the company changed trade and moved into semi-finished products for gelato shops, developing one of the first balanced gelato bases. More than sixty-five years later, that double origin is still felt in its products, including this salted caramel.
How to use it in gelato and pastry
As a gelato paste, the recommended dosage is 80-100 g per litre of mix: dissolve it in the white mix before churning, with no added fat, for a gentler or bolder flavour depending on the amount used. Used as is, it becomes a ready ripple: swirl it as desired between layers of gelato in the display tub to create the salted caramel veining seen in the case. Outside gelato it works just as well in pastry: it fills choux buns, tarts and modern cakes, tops spoon desserts such as panna cotta and cheesecake, and pairs well with dark chocolate, hazelnut, banana, pear and caramelised apples.
Format, storage and allergens
The format is a 3 kg pail, also available in a 12 kg box holding four pails, built for kitchens with regular use. EAN 8021977011549. Store in a cool, dry place away from heat sources and strong odours; once opened, reseal the pail and keep it in the refrigerator, and use the contents within a reasonable time to preserve quality. ALLERGENS: contains MILK, to be declared on display labels and product sheets. This is a semi-finished product for professional use, not intended for direct consumption: it should always be used within a gelato or pastry preparation.
