Soft caramels

What it is

The Soft caramel family in the formulator groups together fillings based on cooking sugar with a dairy ingredient (typically cream or milk), with the characteristic soft texture that lets you use the caramel as a bonbon filling.

What it covers

• Several dozen canonical recipes reviewed by a chef. On October 25, 2026 they were reviewed against the chef's criteria described below: 41 of the 45 were reformulated, and the other 4, from the book, already met them. All of them contain 1 g of bicarbonate and 4 g of lecithin per kilo.
• Only recipes with all their parameters within the type's range are delivered (score 100).
• Cooking: the app indicates 118 °C (typical cooking range 117–118 °C).
• Water activity (aw): it has to be measured on the finished product. The app only estimates it if you enter the final °Brix or the final weight after cooking (see Estimated water activity).
• Structure: fragile (it isn't an emulsion); it requires care in composition and process.

How to invoke it

Sidebar → Filling formulator → the What filling do you want to create? scene: click the Caramel card. Since it's a single-type family (Soft caramel), the wizard selects the type and advances on its own to the next scene (flavor structure). Continue with flavors, weight and constraints as in Generate a filling.

What's guaranteed

• The engine uses a specific prompt for the Soft caramel family, distinct from the Ganache one. It never mixes techniques (it doesn't return a "rescaled ganache" and call it caramel).
• Fixed doses of bicarbonate and lecithin: bicarbonate (baking soda) at 0.1% (1 g per kg) and lecithin at 0.4% (4 g per kg) of the mix weight. The Formulator sets them right after generating the recipe, before validating and adjusting it, and again when it rescales a recipe it already had prepared to the weight you asked for. If they're missing, it adds them, and it rebalances the other ingredients to keep the weight. The range adjustment doesn't move them. They scale with the batch: 0.5 g and 2 g in 500 g; 2 g and 8 g in 2 kg. The result screen states it: "Fixed caramel doses: bicarbonate 0.1% and lecithin 0.4% of the mix."
• By default it doesn't include chocolate couverture in the caramel (enrobing is a later decision by the chocolatier). It only goes in when you pair the caramel with milk or dark chocolate as a flavor (see Chocolate caramels below).
• Results validated against the family's ranges (see the criteria below).

Validation criteria

All percentages are calculated on the total weight of the initial mix, before cooking:

The sugar block is the full weight of the sucrose, glucose (glucose syrup or dextrose), sorbitol and invert sugar lines added together: glucose syrup and invert sugar count in full, water included. It is not the nutritional "sugars" value from the ingredient records. Honey, other syrups, liquid sugar, coconut sugar, maltodextrin, isomalt and the other polyols are not part of the block.

In the Physicochemical balance, soft caramel shows the Water, Total fat, Sugar block and Cocoa butter bars.

Chocolate caramels. When the flavor includes milk or dark chocolate, the engine limits the couverture to 15–30% of the weight when it generates the recipe; the validator doesn't check that interval. The couverture's fat, cocoa butter included, counts toward total fat; its sugar doesn't count toward the sugar block.

Sugar block split (indicative)

Below the balance, the Sugar block split (indicative) block shows how much of the block is sucrose, glucose, sorbitol and invert sugar, and compares it with the chef's reference: sucrose 80–90%, glucose 5–20% and sorbitol 3–5% of the block. It's indicative: "Indicative: it does not count toward the score or require adding sugars." Rules:

• Only the range of a sugar the recipe contains is checked. Invert sugar has no range of its own.
• If the recipe contains only sucrose, it complies: "Sucrose only: compliant."
• The sucrose range is only checked when it's reachable, that is, when the recipe contains sucrose plus glucose or invert sugar. With sucrose and sorbitol alone you'll see "The sucrose range does not apply to this combination."
• Without sucrose (for example, glucose and sorbitol) you'll see "No internal range for this combination."

The same criteria apply in the Formula validation of a saved recipe with the Soft caramel type. There, bicarbonate and lecithin appear as "Fixed: 0.1%" and "Fixed: 0.4%", and What to adjust first never suggests changing them. If the water is high or the block is low, it suggests raising the sucrose, never the glucose or the sorbitol.

Compatible flavors

Frequent flavors with good coverage: vanilla, coffee, sea salt, salted butter, licorice, toasted caramel, apple, pear, ginger, cardamom, assorted spices, rum, whisky, brandy.

Practical differences vs. ganache

Related terms

• Validation score
• Physicochemical balance
• Pâte de fruit