That’s interesting that the prominence of the scotch and chocolate flavors oscillates depending on the temperature — I had no idea. Given that and your slightly soft ganache, I bet it would be great swirled into ice cream — vanilla or ooh, caramel. I might have to try that myself

Anyway, hope they tasted good! It seemed like it was quite an adventure!

And yep, I shoulda turned the heat down as it warmed up, and probably dipped the pan in some cool water afterwards.

Otherwise, most of it came down to finesse — your bars look pristine, and mine looked… rustic? Yeah, rustic.

One interesting observation on the scotch ganache is that the flavors change very dramatically with the temperature of the ganache. Mine remains somewhat soft even when I leave it in the freezer, but when it’s chilled that cold, the scotch flavors are very pronounced and the chocolate is in the background, only really comes out as it warms up on your tongue. When the ganache is at room temperature, the scotch is just an accent to the warm, strong chocolate taste.

For the caramel, I’m wondering, did you cook it on high? If so, the residual heat will escalate the temperature after it is taken off the heat, esp if the pan is good at retaining heat, as yours seem to be. I like to keep the heat on medium-high until it gets to about 225, and then turn it down to medium, and sometimes, when it’s one or two degrees away, to medium-low. You *could* put a bowl of water next to the stove, and briefly dip the bottom of the pan into it to take away some of the heat once it’s off the heat. I don’t like to do that so much, though, because the pan could warp from the shock. I also gently stir the caramel (gently so that it doesn’t promote crystallization, but you should also have sufficient doctor, such as an acid or liquid sugar, to be safe) until it gets to temp to make sure that it doesn’t scorch on the bottom or edges (stirring also releases heat, so it takes a little longer that way). Also, always reading the candy thermometer at eye level is important, even though it’s kind of awkward (sorry, I know it’s obvious, but I want to cover all bases so that you’re rewarded with deliciousness next time!).

Good luck!

My first batch of caramel cooked down in much less time than the recipe predicted, once I poured in the dairy — 4 minutes instead of 10-15. I was so astonished I went for a glass of cold water to make sure my thermometer wasn’t busted. It wasn’t, and the time it took to test turned it into toffee. I peeled that off the ganache when I confirmed that, yes, it would be rock-hard, and made another batch. It’s still too hard, and I stopped cooking when the thermometer registered 240 — well below firm-ball — but off the heat, the thermometer kept going up to 250, so it’s still going to be harder than I wanted. It’s a little confusing, I’m not sure where that heat was coming from. Maybe my thick-bottom pans really keep radiating longer than I thought, or maybe my thermometer is a little slow on the uptake.

Oh yeah, and I used a 12-year Glenlivet for the ganache, and I left it in my car today, and when I got in my car to drive home from work, I found that in the Texas heat, the bottle had exploded, tearing off the foil and blowing the cork out and spilling scotch all over my car, leaving me with just 3T for the ganache. And my car smells like a distillery. Hah!

The tempering’s gonna be tough. Austin’s pretty warm right now, and it’s hard to keep my house very cool. At this point, though, with this batch, the shininess of the coating is not terribly high on my list of concerns. Next time!

And that sounds like such a fun competition! I would have loved to have had that in the offices that I worked in when I was in the film industry, but no one cooked or baked much. At least my first aspirations to learn how to prepare food happened during my last office job, when I had all of 3 minutes of real work a day. I started by reading Alton Brown’s cookbooks and found food blogs for the first time, and the days started flying by.

As long as you find a recipe for a chewy caramel and make a medium ganache, you should be able to replicate this bar closely enough. And spreading a “foot” (a thin layer of chocolate) on the bottom of the slab of ganache before you cut it makes it easier to dip. The intensity of flavors is pretty adjustable, too — if it’s not salty enough, sprinkle more salt on top, and if it’s not Scotch-y enough, drink some on the side. I still want to try it with Balvanie, as someone above suggested.

Good luck! And I hope you have good temperature control. Chocolate likes a room temp of about 68F best during tempering, although a little warmer is ok.

We had always talked about bringing it back with a collaboration, and making a gourmet rendition on the Snickers bar, and after I picked up McGee’s On Food and Cooking the other day I thought of my poor candy thermometer, gathering dust in the drawer for less-often-used cooking tools, the hard-to-reach one, and decided I’d figure out a way.

Your site has been an immense inspiration. I used to make a lot of candy as a kid, but I never even mastered fudge. I made a lot of lollipops, taffies, caramels, and fondants, though, and reading about the cold water test stages brings back some hazy old memories.

Rather than try for a perfect nougat and liquid caramel with roasted peanuts and trying to enrobe all that at once (I’ve never enrobed anything in my life) I think I’ll start a bit small and attempt a clone of this bar, because it sounds unbelievably good, and I’ve made enough ganache frosting and caramel in my life I think I can probably handle it. I’m trying to work out the logistics, especially how you got the bar solid enough to enrobe, but I guess that’s the fun in experimenting.

Thanks again for the inspiration and all the great information. Reading this site makes me wonder if maybe cooking wouldn’t have been the better career path after all. Distant hills are greener, though, and all that.