Our Fleur de Sel Caramels are the thing we are probably best known for, and the first word of the name does most of the work. Here is what fleur de sel actually is.
What is fleur de sel? It translates to flower of salt, and it is the delicate crust of crystals that forms on the surface of seawater evaporation ponds, traditionally along the coast of France. It is raked off by hand, only in the right weather, which is why it costs more than ordinary salt. The crystals are light, flaky, slightly moist, and they dissolve slowly, so instead of one even salty note you get small, bright bursts.
That slow dissolve is the entire reason salted caramel became a phenomenon, and also the reason most salted caramel disappoints.
Why does the salt matter so much in caramel?
Cheap salted caramel mixes fine salt into the candy, which just makes it taste seasoned. Fleur de sel works differently. The crystals stay partly intact, so as the caramel melts you hit little flashes of salt against the dark sweetness. Each bite has a rhythm to it: caramel, salt, caramel, chocolate. Adding fleur de sel to our dark, rich caramel does not mute the caramel flavor. It accentuates it, the way salt on a good tomato makes it taste more like a tomato.
How we make ours
Our Fleur de Sel Caramels are made in small batches with real cream and butter, cooked dark (a properly dark caramel has an almost roasted depth that pale caramel never reaches), and enrobed in our 65% bittersweet chocolate. Each box holds both the Classic and the Bittersweet versions. These are fresh confections, at their best within a few weeks, which has never been a problem for anyone who has opened a box.
And for the committed: the Fleur de Sel Caramel Edible Chocolate Box packs eighteen caramels inside a handmade box that is itself made of chocolate. It is the only packaging we make that you are required to eat.
If salted caramel has started to feel like a cliché to you, I understand. It got popular for a reason, and then popularity did what it does. Taste the original idea done with the real salt, and it stops being a trend and goes back to being what it was: one of the best two-ingredient arguments in the kitchen.
Enjoy,
Chuck Siegel
Founder, Charles Chocolates
Chuck Siegel
Founder, Charles Chocolates
Chuck has been making chocolate in San Francisco since 1987. Self-taught, he founded his first chocolate company, Attivo Confections, sold it in 1995, and started Charles Chocolates in 2004 on one uncommon idea: chocolate should be treated like fresh food.
Everything is made in small batches with all-natural ingredients (real cream, real butter, real fruit) and no shortcuts. His work has earned a Good Food Award, Sunset Magazine's Best of the West, and recognition from San Francisco Magazine, and has been covered by KQED and the San Francisco food press.
