Salted Caramels. NOM.

Come here, little girl... eat some canndyy.

I certainly will, especially when it's salted caramels!

I've been wanting to make candy for a while now, but finally had en excuse: celebrating going to the Edwardian Ball in LA with friends to see Creature Feature. WHAT A GOOD NIGHT TO STUFF OUR FACES.

Here's the recipe:

In one pot warm up 5 tablespoons butter, 1 cup heavy cream, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, and 1/4 teaspoon salt until butter has melted, as seen in photo on left. Turn off heat.

In another pot (with room for mixture to bubble), combine 1 1/2 cups sugar (I ended up using 1/2 cup white sugar and 1 cup brown sugar for flavor. Who am I kidding... I ran out of white sugar. I'm glad that I did, brown sugar has a better, richer taste), 1/4 cup corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water. Slowly bring to a boil and watch the mixture carefully. Do not stir, just gently swish the sugars, Sugar. Once boiling (like the photo on the right) you can start adding the fatty goodness. Slowly pour in milk and butter and stay calm when the mixture bubbles up. At this point you can stir, and I would recommend that you stay nearby throughout the process to continue stirring every few minutes.

When it's ready it should look like the photo above. I don't have a candy thermometer, so I tested it the old fashioned way: drop a little of the caramel into a glass of cold water and fish it out, the texture should tell you if it needs to be cooked a little longer. Mine was actually done at this stage, but out of paranoia I let it go a little longer and the candies were a little harder than I wanted. Still amazingly delicious, but I wanted gooey chewy. Remember that it will harden up when it is completely room temperature.

After it is done cooking, pour the mix into a lightly oiled foil-lined pan. I believe mine was an 8x8. Sprinkle coarse salt on the top and let cool for a while

Once cool, use a greased knife to cut the pieces and if the caramels are still a little warm and soft, you can even mold them a little. Wrap them in parchment or wax paper and throw them in a bag with a fake cockroach on the front to try to keep thieves away.