CARAMELS!

1/6/11

Remember these?

 

Mmmmmmmmm........

I promised I'd share the recipe. I can't really take credit for it--it's my friend Michelle's from Loving Every Second (check out her site--she has the best recipes and crafts!). I used hers because she also lives in Cedar City and I knew it would turn out with our mile high elevation. I used it to make caramel apples and then poured the rest into a pan to use as caramels.

Michelle's Homemade Caramels

1 cup butter

2 cups packed light brown sugar

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

1 cup light corn syrup

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat (the lower the better - if it heats up too fast, you will have hard caramel).  Stir in sugar.  Add sweetened condensed milk, corn syrup and salt.  Using a candy thermometer, heat to 234 degrees (around 15 minutes), stirring constantly (will be boiling).  When it reaches 234 degrees, cook for two more minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

{NOTE - for higher altitudes, you may need to reduce the heat.  For every 1,000 feet above sea level, reduce heat 2 degrees.  If you're not sure, just make sure caramel is in soft ball stage} 

Pour into buttered 9x13 baking dish.  Cool completely.  Cut into squares or rectangles and wrap individual pieces in wax paper.* 

* Which takes about a million years, so beware

After I had dipped all my apples**, I poured the rest into a jelly roll pan lined with parchment paper. (I needed that big of a pan because I doubled the recipe). Then while the caramel was still soft, I sprinkled the whole pan with chopped, toasted walnuts, these:

  and drizzled everything with chocolate***:

 

and they were DIVINE!

** I used the toffee bits to encrust the outside of some of the caramel apples right after they were dipped, too. YUM.

*** To loosen chocolate for drizzling, melt with about 1 tsp. to 1 tbsp. shortening. I found out the hard way that continuing to heat the chocolate on its own just makes it rock hard, and adding milk does too.

So try a batch sometime. It was even rainy and overcast when I made them and they turned out fine. Perhaps it was just a miracle of Christmas.