Caramel Traditions

Grandma Alice would be so proud....here she is in her kitchen circa 1970...

The holidays are almost upon us....and within my family that means it's almost caramel time. Gma Alice was famous around these parts for her homemade caramels. She gave me her recipe and my own candy thermometer a few years ago but I hadn't yet gotten around to trying to make them on my own. 

So last Friday night Mom, Gma Jean, Aunt Nancy, and I set out to make caramels. My cousin Lisa now lives out in Montana so she skyped in with us as we made our caramel batches together. Lisa has made quite a few batches on her own...and is now the family expert! 

So we started out with butter, sugar, salt, and corn syrup...

you start to heat the mixture until you bring it to a boil...

Lisa's batch seemed to take longer to bring to a boil and we had a long discussion about her altitude and if that would affect her caramels. Both our Home Ec major mothers couldn't answer the question and mom even pulled out her Joy of Cooking cookbook to find the answer...but all she could find was info on baking at higher altitudes...so Lisa just pressed on and made her batch just like she always has....

Making caramels takes patience and a lot of stirring...after adding some cream and vanilla you just keeping stirring and stirring and stirring....

Then you add your candy thermometer and heat the mixture until it reaches 245 degrees....

Keep stirring!!

Checking out the thermometers to ensure we know where to stop. 

Once you hit 245 degrees you pour into pans and let cool overnight. 

The next morning you dump the block of caramel out...grease up a knife and cut into bit sized squares. Gpa Wayne was always in charge of cutting and wrapping all of Gma Alice's caramels. They always wrapped each individual caramel like a Christmas present....talk about time consuming! My caramels were a little soft to do that so we opted to just twisting the ends. But they are still really yummy and practically melt in your mouth! Gma Alice also used this recipe to make caramel apples. 

My batch turned out a little soft, Nancy's was a little more firm and too tough to chew. Lisa's was rock hard in the morning and turns out she needed a hammer to break her block apart. Her comment was...'I made my own Werther's candies'....they still had good flavor, you just have to suck on them for awhile. She found somewhere she should have adjusted 2 degrees for every 1000 feet she is above sea level. You live and you learn. 

I think I'll make another batch before Christmas arrives and we still need to make Gma Alice's Christmas tree cookies. Gotta love family traditions!