These caramels are divine. After my initial succes with the first batch, I decided that I’d make little boxes of chocolates for people for the holidays. I tried the recipe for the chocolate coating above, but maybe I used a hair too much butter.
Ive let them harden for an hour, but the chocolate coating leaves fingerprints and is a little soft. It’s DELICIOUS but it’s hard to package for giving away without the individual candies sticking together or melting into one another. I’ll have to individually wrap those. I made another batch with ghirardelli dipping and candy wafers (without adding butter), and they’re a bit firmer and easier to handle. Maybe I’ll only add half the butter to the chocolate next time.
We made these chocolate covered caramels last year and they are simply to die for. I’m a big fan of chewy caramel with rich flavors and dark smooth chocolate. Together, this created a real treat. My tip for getting them to stay their shape and look pretty, is cut them into squares and then refrigerate them so they’re cool when you put the warm chocolate on them. The best way I’ve found to put chocolate on them is to use a pastry brush and just pick up the caramel and paint the bottom, then the top. It works wonderful and they look great.
I then put them on wax paper and put in the fridge right away. I found some great chocolate boxes and accessories at Michael’s craftstore and I’m going to gift these for Valentine’s this year. The caramel taste of this treat is very addicting…Enjoy.
The taste is wonderful, but mine turned out so chewy, eating one piece could take you a couple of minutes. Maybe I cooked them the wrong amount of time??? Don’t use dark brown sugar, they end up almost as dark as chocolate!
These caramels were fantastic. I have tried twice before to make caramels at home and failed miserably (with a different recipe). This came out great the first time. I did dip them in the milk chocolate (without the butter) and sprinkled them with sea salt. They were so delicious. I found that putting them top down into the melted chocolate, lifting them out and then flipping them onto the waxed paper after shaking off some of the chocolate was the easiest way to dip them. I also mixed some silver and gold luster dust from the cake decorating store into the sea salt to give it a silver or gold look on top of the chocolate.
They turned out really beautiful and I will be giving them for gifts. I look forward to also mixing powdered food coloring in with the luster dust and sea salt for other colors but I haven’t done it yet. Great recipe that I will use again and again. UPDATE: I used a 24 cavity silicone Christmas Tree mold (Wilton’s I think) for my second batch. It was so easy to pop them out of the buttered molds when they had set up. I will be doing this exclusively from now on. i plan to dip them in chocolate and put the salt arranged like garland. Can’t wait.
I found a can of condensed milk in the fridge, looked up some recipes, and stumbled upon this one. I was always scared of making homemade caramels, but this was a complete success! I halved the recipe, and couldn’t be more happy that I did…as I ended up with tons and tons of caramels. Next time, I will still use the 8×8 pan for half the recipe or a 9×13 for a whole batch, as i think they were too thick in a smaller pan.
Ingredients:
CARAMELS:
1 cup butter
2 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
CHOCOLATE:
1 pound milk chocolate
1 tablespoon butter.
Directions:
Grease an 8 x 8 inch square pan.
In a heavy 4 quart saucepan melt butter over medium heat; add brown sugar, corn syrup and milk. Stirring constantly, heat to 242 to 248 degrees F (116 to 120 degrees C), or until a small amount of syrup dropped into cold water forms a firm but pliable ball. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract. Pour into prepared pan.
When caramel has cooled and set, cut into 1 inch squares. Chill in refrigerator until firm.
Melt chocolate with 1 tablespoon butter in the top of a double boiler or in a bowl in the microwave. Stir until smooth.
Dip caramel squares in chocolate and place on wax paper to cool.
source:allrecipes.com
