I love love love salted caramels. I have one of those grandmas that always carries Werther's butterscotch in her purse, so I have loved that smooth buttery taste of caramel almost all my life. (I saw my gma yesterday, and now she carries around the coffee Werther's, also very delicious, I'm glad things in Hawaii don't change too much.) As I grew older I switched to Rolos, and then as my palate matured I ditched my love of store bought candies, and moved onto fancy salted caramels (I do still enjoy Werther's with my gma). Salted caramels are often a bit expensive in stores so I do not get to enjoy them very often. Then, I found out how simple it is to make homemade caramels!
I followed this recipe from Ina Garten, and it is beyond delicious! It also has really helpful step by step pictures. One major thing I did differently was I only heated the sugar to 300 degrees F before adding the cream mixture. If you follow the recipe closely you will yield a very dark candy, I wanted mine to be a lighter color and found out that is due to how long you cook the sugar. Also, this recipe says to heat the caramel mixture to 248 degrees F for firm ball, you do not need to have it exactly at 248, but for firm ball candy it must be between 245 and 250. Lastly, I cut my caramels into much smaller bite sized pieces!
P.S. I cannot stress how important it is to watch the thermometer the entire time. The first time I tried to make these I walked away for 2 seconds and the temperature shot up and my caramels were very hard, almost inedible. I saved them by putting them in some cookies.
Now I'm off to the beach!
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