Homemade Caramels

Homemade Caramels

Can you make homemade candy for Holiday gifts easily in a Small Kitchen or RV Galley and get Big Flavors! The answer is YES.  This recipe relies on the use of a microwave oven, a 2 quart microwave safe glass measuring cup and a heat tolerant spatula.

Makes about 180 individual caramels

Ingredients

1 cup or (2cubes)   unsalted butter

1 tsp                       unsalted butter (1/2 tsp to coat each of the baking parchment sheets of paper)

1 cup                     dark brown sugar

1 1/2 cups             light brown sugar

14 oz                     sweetened condensed milk

1 cup                     Karo light corn syrup

1 tsp                      pure vanilla extract

t/2 tsp                    coarse sea salt

Directions

1.  Place a sheet of baking parchment paper on each of 2 –  9″ x 11″ baking pans.
2.  Lightly coat the top of each parchment paper with 1/2 tsp of softened butter, set aside.
3.  Place the butter in the 2 quart glass measuring cup, melt on HIGH for 1 minute.
4.  Add sweetened condensed milk, brown sugars and karo syrup, stir.
5.  Heat in microwave on HIGH for 5 minutes, stir.
6.  Heat in microwave on HIGH for another 5 minutes, stir.
7.  Heat in microwave on HIGH for 4 minutes, then stir and do a sample test to check the consistency of the candy to see  if it forms a ‘soft ball’  when a half a teaspoon of the boiling syrup is added to a cup that is 2/3 full with cold water. Gentley move the caramel blob at the bottom of the cup to see if it holds a soft squishy like ball shape or close to it!
8.  Heat the caramel again in the microwave as needed using 1 minute intervals, checking the candy consistency as noted in #5.  I did this for a total of 3 times which made step #5 a total of 4 minutes plus, 1 min. plus 1 min., plus 1 minutes…4 plus 1 minute bursts of microwaving and stirring which made this step 7 minutes.
9.  Add the vanilla, stir and pour the caramel (semi-liquid onto the buttered parchment paper on 2   9″ x 11″ baking pans.
10.  Lightly sprinkle coarse sea salt.
11.  Let the candy cool.  I placed the baking pans on hot pads in the fridge for an hour.
12.  Lift the parchment filled candy out of the baking dish, cut the caramels into about 3/4″ x 3/4″ pieces.
13.  Roll the individual caramels in wax paper and twist the ends to seal each caramel.  Use wax paper squares that are almost 3″ x 3″ in size for wrapping the candies.

Note:  My total microwave times were 5 minutes, plus 5 minutes plus 4 minutes, plus 3 bursts of 1 minute – for a grand total of 17 minutes.

My cookbook Small Kitchen Big Flavors! is available at a great Introductory Price on Ebay and my blog site at : http:/smallkitchenbigflavorsblog.wordpress.com

Chef MJ