Before you start, get your pan ready. Line an 8 x 8 x 2 inch pan with a big sheet of cooking foil. Then butter the foil. You'll be glad you did this before hand because if you don't do this first, you'll have to stop stirring the candy at a crucial point and it may burn. If you want chopped walnuts or even better, pecans in the final product, sprinkle them onto the buttered, foil-lined tin.
This is not a recipe that you can do while having a glass of wine. You will be dealing with food temperatures that are a lot hotter than you would find normally. Save yourself unnecessary pain and another cooking burn by staying clear headed.
1 cup butter - please use butter and not margarine - no substitutions for this one
16 oz of light brown or muscavado sugar (about 2 1/4 packed cups)
2 cups of cream (US folks please use half and half)
1 cup light corn syrup (Karo syrup - not available in the UK)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (which I forgot last time and it still turned out beautifully)
In your heaviest bottomed large pan melt the butter over low heat. Add in the brown sugar, cream and corn syrup. Stir in and turn the heat up a tiny bit. Clip a candy thermometer onto the side of the pan. When the mixture starts to boil, check the flame under your pan (if you're using gas - make sure that the flame is only just touching the bottom of the pan) I cannot stress enough that you can't turn up the heat to make this recipe cook any faster. Slow and steady.
Stir the boiling mass constantly while monitoring the thermometer. Keep going until the candy has reached the firm ball stage. The thermometer will register about 248 F or 120 C. You will have noticed that the texture of the mixture will have started to change. Please be careful at this point. Right at the end when the candy is at its hottest is when you run the greatest risk of burning your candy.
When it is ready, remove from the heat, stir in the vanilla and pour the caramel into the prepared baking tin. You're going to have to let it cool for hours. When it is first poured out, it is molten sugar and will give you a nasty burn. Don't touch it!
When it has cooled completely, unmould it onto a big cutting board and using your biggest knife, cut it into small cubes. Put all the cubes in an airtight container and hope that they last in your house for more than a day.
See - its empty
1 comment:
This is almost the exact recipe I use every year for Christmas. Everyone loves them and I have given the recipe away more times than I can count. This is my Grandmother's recipe and we are all from the Midwest. Illinois, specifically. I live in California now, and will be making these with my 5 year old daughter today. I am assuming she will be a tad bored by the stirring though. I think I'll be on my own during that!!
The one difference is in the sugar. My recipe calls for 2 cups white sugar, and one cup packed brown sugar. I must try it with all brown sugar. I can only imagine it will make my(our) great recipe even more rich and tasty.
By the way, I will be trying your other recipes to be sure. Wonderful site, keep up the good work ;)
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