Sunday, December 13, 2009

And on the 6 recipe day it's.... Caramels

These make the best gifts because they are so darn yummy !! I love to have one with a cup of coffee. They are like the soft rolled caramels you can get at that famous restaurant/store with the rocking chairs on the porch :) Yep that's the one !

Ingredients:

1 vanilla bean
2 cups heavy cream( 1 pint)
1 cup light Karo syrup
2 cups sugar
1/2 stick unsalted butter cut up
1/2 tsp salt

Line a 9 inch pan with parchment paper.

Split the vanilla bean down the middle
length wise and remove the seeds with a sharp knife.

Add the seeds and cream in a 1+ 1/2 qt. pan.

Heat to scald cream . Turn off the heat but
leave it set on the burner to stay warm.



In a heavy 4 to 5 qt. pan
stir corn syrup and sugar thoroughly
over low heat until dissolved .

Turn heat to medium and gently boil until it
reaches 305 degrees(hard cracked stage) on a candy
thermometer about 9 to 11 mins.

Add the butter and salt stirring constantly.

Pour the warm vanilla cream in slowly in a stream while
still keeping candy at a boil

Mixture will become very bubbly and foam up so be careful.

Lower heat to medium and gently boil again until the
thermometer registers about 245 degrees stirring
occasionally to prevent it from scorching. I do
a soft ball in cold water too till it's a solid soft ball
 stage because I like them soft.

Takes about 15 minutes.

Turn off heat and set it aside for a couple minutes.

Pour ,( scraping the pan) into the parchment lined pan.

Cool 6 hours.


Invert onto a clean cutting board and either wrap
entire chunk up tightly in foil and cut some off as
needed or cut in short strips and place on small
cut rectangle pieces of parchment paper twisted
at the ends and rolled on the counter to make them rounded
like tootsie rolls. It's less sticky wrapped.

I like to do them about 4 inches long. But they can be cubed too.

They will stick together if you don't wrap each single one.

This makes a large 2 lb. batch of caramels .

3 comments:

Alice said...

I don't think you know me, but I was linked to your blog from Traci's. :) I was just wondering if you thought there was any way these caramels would work with regular vanilla instead of a vanilla bean.

Karen said...

Hi Alice. I think I met you once at church in Ovid. Your Sarah's friend right? I have never tried them with pure vanilla because you put it in with the cream to heat. Usually with other candy the liquid vanilla has to be added at the very end so it holds the flavor. I would research on line to see if other recipes allow it to be used or just try it. I know vanilla bean is so expensive. Please let me know if you make them how they come out with it. Thanks for commenting and Merry Christmas.

Karen said...

Me again Alice. I took the liberty of making a half batch of these caramels with PURE Vanilla to see if it copuld be done and they turned out great ! I just added the vanilla in with the cream. Hope you give them a whirl.
Saw your pic of some kind of candy on Christine's FB and that looked mighty good. What were they?