Candy!

Homemade caramels!

This recipe is for Apple Spiced Caramels from King Arthur Flour.  Seems like an odd place to find non-bread recipes, but this is one of my favorite food blogs to read.  Not only do the food writers know their way around the kitchen, they have very interesting and fun blogs to read.   Lots of great recipes, too!

Caramels can be tricky.  I've made them quite often, but the outcome is often "ify".  I have difficulty with the temperature - soft ball stage.  Really?  What does that mean?  I get distracted (you know, doing more than one thing at a time) and either let it over cook, or stop before 248 degrees.

The secret to these caramels is "boiled cider syrup" which King Arthur Flour will gladly sell you (for $10 a small bottle)  It can also be made by boiling down regular old apple cider into a thick syrup.  That's what I did which took about 4 hours of slow cooking on the stove.  No need to pay attention or stir.  Just cook until the water is gone and the cider-y goodness remains in concentrated form.  The house smelled great!

The caramels call for the regular candy ingredients - sugar, corn syrup, butter, heavy cream and the cider syrup - with spices thrown in at the end:  cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, plus a bit of salt.

  Soft Ball stage - 248 degrees.

Cool in an 8 x 8 pan for 12 hours.

I happened to see that this month's issue of Martha Stewart Living had an article on caramel making with 4 flavor variations.  She did not mention Apple Cider Caramels, so wish me luck when these have cooled!

Done and Yum!