Sea Salt and Chocolate covered Caramels

This year in all my Christmas baking I made caramels.  Everyone is always impressed with homemade caramels, and I don’t find it too hard to make them.  The only downside is wrapping all the little caramels once they are done. I usually end up doing this over a couple of days, which is how I came to this new small variation.

I had a bunch of caramels wrapped when O informed me that there was a baking competition at work the next day and he should take something.  I handed over my caramels (there were still lots left to be wrapped) and didn’t think anymore of it.  Turns out they were a big hit - they ran out of caramels during the eating/judging of the competition, oops.  What did come out of this though was the suggestion to coat the caramels in chocolate and sea salt.  I had some left and wasn’t excited about wrapping them, so why not play a little?

I am happy to say I did play with them and to my delight they were fantastic.  The bonus is that this doesn’t even take much more time than wrapping them, but really takes them to a whole special place on the dessert table!

I did some slight adaptations to the caramel recipe found on allrecipes.com.  I hope you enjoy these.

Sea Salt and Chocolate covered Caramels
Ingredients:
Caramels:
1 cup butter
1 pound brown sugar
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup light corn syrup (i used golden, as that is pretty much all you can find here)
1 ½ tsp vanilla paste (or 1 ½ vanilla beans - well the insides of the beans - would work)

Coating:
3 cups milk chocolate melting chips
Coarse sea salt

Directions:
1. Prepare a 9x13 pan by lining it with parchment paper (or you could just grease it - I like the parchment paper as you can just lift out the caramels to cut them)
3.In a saucepan (preferably with a heavy bottom) combine the caramel ingredients: butter, sugar, milk, and corn syrup.  
4 Heat the mixture until you reach 234F, then cook for 2 minutes at this temperature, while stirring.
    Note: this will make very soft caramels, if you would like them a little firmer, cook them at 240F (I like the really soft ones, so I left it at 234F).
5. Take the caramels off the heat and add in the vanilla paste/beans.  Pour the caramels into the prepared 9x13 pan, and allow to set.
6. Once the caramels are set, cut them into bite sized squares - I did about ½ inch x 1 inch rectangles.
7. In a double boiler melt some of the melting chocolate pieces.  Once they are melted remove from heat. (if the chocolate starts to harden on you, just put it back on the heat for a couple of min).
8. Dip the caramel squares in the chocolate, set to cool on some parchment paper.  While the chocolate is still soft, sprinkle with some sea salt.

Note:  I found it easiest to work in small batches of the caramels at the time.  It was also easier to have the caramels cool while dipping them, as they held their shape a little better in the warm chocolate, so I kept the other batches of caramels in the fridge while I was working.

Reviews:
These were fantastic.  I had to give most of them away as I found I couldn’t stop eating them!  One person O work with even asked for a bunch of them to give as a Christmas present to someone!  They were a big hit and will have to be something that I make again.

The caramels by themselves are also great, so don’t worry about covering them all in chocolate! 

7 Minute Frosting

This frosting is out of an old cookbook that my Dad got when he left home to go to college. It is light and fluffy, but super sweet. You can easily change the flavor by adding a different extract other than vanilla, have fun with it! So if you have a special occasion coming up or just want to indulge, I hope you enjoy this recipe.

7 minute Frosting

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups white sugar
2 egg whites
½ cup cold water
1 tsp cream of tarter
Vanilla (1-2 tsp)

Directions:
1.In the top of a double boiler (or a glass bowl you can set in a pot, with the rim sitting on the edge of the pot) combine all the ingredients and mix until combined.
2.Place the top of the double boiler (or the bowl) on top of a pot full of boiling water. Beat the ingredients until soft peaks form (I highly suggest using an electric mixer for this!). This should take between 4 and 7 minutes.
3.Remove the top of the double boiler (or bowl) to cool water and continue beating until the frosting has cooled enough to spread.
4.Working quickly (with as few strokes as possible) frost the cake. This icing looks wonderful with lots of little peaks all over the cake – it is not the best for a nice smooth neat surface!

Reviews:
This is my Dad’s favorite frosting to have on top of angel food cake, and it is the cake that he never fails to request for his birthday. The frosting is very sweet, almost like a marshmallow fluff, so while it is great as a special treat, it is not something you would want to use everyday.

Apple Peel “Taffy”

After making 15 apple pies and a couple batches of cinnamon apple chips I had roughly 6 lbs off apple peel in my fridge. There was no way I could just toss them without feeling bad (“use everything” has been drilled into since childhood), so I searched out recipes. I was going to make apple jelly from them using the natural pectin that is supposed to be in apple peels. I say supposed to be as apparently I did something wrong and got no pectin. I had gotten to the point were it should have been jelling and it wasn’t happening. I used rubbing alcohol and tested for pectin, to find I didn’t have any. Well I had already put a lot of boiling time into the project, so I decided to see if I could just turn it into candy. This turned out to be an interesting candy with all natural sugars and colours (it is only apple peels and water) that was fun to make.

Ingredients:
Apple peels
Enough water to cover peels

Directions:
1. Put the apple peels and water into a large pot and bring to a simmer. Stir for a while until you can smell the apples, and taste it in the “juice”.

2. Drain the juice from the peels and run through a jelly bag.

3. Place the juice in a clean, heavy bottomed pot and boil until the temperature reaches 270F (soft crack stage). Note: this will take several hours and really depends on how dilute your juice is.
4. Pour the hot candy onto parchment paper or a silicone mat. Let the candy cool until it you are able to handle it, then butter your hands and pull the candy – folding, not twisting it.

5. When it is becoming to cool to pull, form it into a rope and let cool a little more.
6. Cut the rope into small pieces.

Reviews:
The candy was tasty, and even though I scorched the syrup a little it was still and interesting candy. The peels made the candy a nice dark red color that is great to look at.

Peppermint Patties

I love chocolate covered peppermint in almost any form so I decided to try and make some of my own peppermint patties. I found a few recipes on allrecipe.com, and after much searching, reading of reviews and tweaking, this is what I came up with.

INGREDIENTS
4 ounces low fat cream cheese
1 tbsp butter
3 cups icing sugar
2 tsp peppermint extract

METHOD:
1. Cream together the cream cheese, butter and icing sugar. Add the peppermint extract (Note you can test it at this stage for consistany you want as it may need a little more confectioner's sugar, or peppermint extract. If using peppermint oil, add a drop at a time and test for taste.).
2. Roll into medium sized balls and place on waxed paper. Flatten with a fork and let dry for a few hours.
3. Melt chocolate in a double boiler and dip dry patties in melted chocolate. Let harden on wax paper
4. Enjoy!


REVIEWS:
We all loved these, and the batch was gone by the end of the next day. They were delicious and completely addictive. These will be made many more times.

Just like a Scorebar!

After recieving a candy thermometer in the Jknotties Kitchen Gadget Exchange I decided to try making some more candy. I love toffee so I went looking for a recipe. Most of the toffee recipes I found included nuts - and I am really not a fan of nuts in my baking or candy so I decided to just leave it out.

I got this recipe off of allrecipe.com and it is delicious - with semisweet chocolate chips on top it tastes almost exactly like a skor chocoate bar! Thanks to FUNKYSEAMONKEY for this great recipes!

I cut the recipe down a lot as I didn't want to have a ton of this candy laying around.

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips


DIRECTIONS
1. In a large heavy bottomed saucepan, combine the butter, sugar and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring until the butter is melted. Allow to come to a boil, and cook until the mixture becomes a dark amber color, and the temperature has reached between 280 - 290 F (137 degrees C). Stir occasionally.
2. While the toffee is cooking, cover a 8x8 baking pan with aluminum foil or parchment paper.
3. As soon as the toffee reaches the proper temperature, pour it out onto the prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle the chocolate over the top, and let it set for a minute or two to soften. Spread the chocolate into a thin even layer once it is melted.
4. Place the toffee in the refrigerator to chill until set. Break into pieces, and store in an airtight container.



REVIEWS:
As I have said above this tasted just like a skor bar. The entire batch was gone the night I made it. Hubby and his friend could not stop eating it! The hockey guys also loved the little bits I was able to save for them that night. This was delicious and will become a family favourite I am sure.

My Attempt at Making Caramels

This weekend I had the pleasure of being home alone for the whole the weekend - now as great as it is to have some peace and quiet I also found that having this much time on my hands leaves me extremely bored. Especially when things that were planned fall through - through a calander error plans I had for the weekend seem to actually be taking place two months later - I had written them down for March instead of May.

So with all this extra time I decided that I would try something that I have been meaning to try for years - making my own caramels. I had always shied away from this due to my lack of a candy thermometer (I have been meaning to get one for ages, and somehow it always gets forgotten) and my fear of the candy "stages". I had the time and nothing to do so I figured I would just run out and get a candy thermometer - turns out my Hubby took the car keys with him, so no luck on going anywhere. Now instead of doing the smart thing and waiting till I had a thermometer, I decided to try my luck with the "stages".

I found an easy looking Chewy Caramel recipe on Allrecipe.com and decided to give it a try. So in trying to get everything ready in order do the softball testing, I accidently let the sugar burn a little. I am hoping people don't notice it too much (I didn't when I tested the mix). Then off course I was completely paranoid that I was going to overcook the mixture and I am pretty sure that I have undercooked it, as it is really soft and I had to put it in the freezer to get it hard enough to cut. This isn't actually so bad, as I love softer caramels that you suck on more than you chew.

I am took them to my H's team's hockey game tonight and some of his team-mates and spectators tried them. They all liked them, although they did say chewing them wasn't a good idea. I will try this again when get a thermometer and see if I can't get them a little harder.