Cream Caramels

I confess to having a terrible sweet tooth and a lifelong love affair with homemade candy. As a child growing up I looked forward all year to the candy Mom and the other ladies in our community would make for Christmas. I have hunted down and researched and experimented with recipes for seafoam, divinity, fudge, cream candy, glass candy, bourbon candy, fruit creams, buckeyes, mashed potato candy and any other candy I ever ate that was made by those women in rural Kentucky.
In 2009 I was living in Rural Arizona and I met a lady who was raised on a dairy farm in North Dakota. I had brought my fudge to a gathering and she and I begin chatting about making candy. She said she had her grandmother’s recipe for cream caramels and offered to make them with me sometime. It was like offering drugs to a junkie so a date was set and a new love affair began.
She didn’t have children of her own so she passed the recipe down to me. As much as I love chocolate there is just something about these caramels that moved them to the top of the Christmas candy list.

4 cups white sugar

3 cups light Karo syrup

6 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup unsalted butter

4 tablespoons vanilla extract, (yes, tablespoons)

Grease a half sheet baking pan well with butter. In a 5 or 6 quart pot with a heavy bottom combine sugar, Karo and 2 cups of cream. Cook, stirring frequently, over medium high heat until mixture begins to boil. Reduce heat to medium and stirring slowly but constantly heat to 238 degrees. Add 2 cups of cream, return to boil and cook to 238 degrees. Add the remaining 2 cups of cream, return to boil and cook until it reaches 248 degrees. Remove from heat and stir in the butter and vanilla, making sure to stir until all of the butter is melted and incorporated into the mixture.

Pour out hot caramel in long sweeping motions onto the baking sheet to distribute it evenly. Set in a cool place until firm, about 3-4 hours. Using scissors cut into long strips about 1 1/2inch wide. Cut strips into squares and wrap with candy foils or small squares of waxed paper.

These store and ship very well. Caramels will keep one month in  the refrigerator.