Homemade Caramels....

I love caramels, I just do.  It's one of my favorite tastes ever, I love them plain, I love them as syrup poured over ice cream and I love them even more as chocolate treasures, hidden in the center so that when you take a bite you get this gooey caramely stuff all over your mouth.  It's just heavenly!

But just like the fudge it was something I thought I would never be able to make on my own......until today.  I've been experimenting and playing around with a bunch of recipes, then I came across a blog online a couple months ago and found the recipe.  I set it aside and thought  "well, just another to experiment with and will probably turn out as yucky as the rest".  I'm seriously beating myself up now for not making them sooner.

You will NEVER have caramels from the store again when you make these yourself and let's not even mention giving it to friends and neighbors as gifts, they'll be begging for you recipe.

So let's get started, shall we?

We start with 1 cup of light corn syrup.

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of brown sugar

2 sticks of butter

1 can of condensed milk.....I'm so so bad with this stuff, I find myself licking the leftovers in the can, yeah I'm THAT addicted to it.

Oh yeah baby, that looks so good already doesn't it???  My hips are chanting for joy at the sight.

Now because we want to make it even more yummier, we add a teaspoon of vanilla extract. 

At this point you're going to want to find a strong man to help you, because you see that boiling yumminess above???  Well after it comes to a rolling boil, you're going to have to stir it constantly for about 15 minutes.  No, I'm not lying, I'm serious..........15 minutes.  Go find a strong man....or do what I do....just start stirring, you'll get awesome muscles. 

Now this step you can do before you start cooking OR while the big strong man is stirring. *snicker*

Grease a cookie sheet with some butter.  I just grab a chunk and move it around the pan and because it's that thick, it does the sides too at the same time.  Cool huh?

Pour into the pan, smooth the top and let it cool.  Look how pretty and shiny it is, but wait until you pop one into your mouth.....the earth will stop and you'll develop beautiful wings that will make you fly....not really, but it's THAT good.

Now take out the pizza cutter and start cutting away....you could do rectangles but I went with squares to get more out of it....and believe me, it's a LOT.

I gently pull them out of the pan and then used a serrated knife to cut them apart, it leaves pretty little edges on the caramels.

I wrapped some individually in some press n' seal...you could use saran wrap and even wax paper.  This jar above is going to Jasmine's teacher for Christmas and the kids and Curt are also getting one for themselves...they've been sneaking in caramels the whole time I was cooking LOL

Enjoy!!!