Disclosure: Any post may contain links to my shop or affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission from any purchase you make. All opinions about products I use are my own. Read the full disclosure and Privacy Policy HERE.
My seasonal love affair with homemade caramel started not-so-innocently. The Christmas my twins were infants (read: I was seriously sleep deprived), Matt’s Aunt Julie sent us an awesome Christmas package in the mail. The package came during the day while Matt was at work and I was home with the babies (read: struggling to figure out how to take care of two babies). I opened the package and had no problem leaving the wrapped gifts wrapped, but there was a bag of homemade caramels that were NOT wrapped.
At first my plan was to wait until Matt came home to eat a few caramels together. But then they were just sitting there, begging and pleading for me to try JUST ONE. To make a long story short, by the afternoon, one caramel became ALL the caramels.
I felt terrible,Ā so I did the only reasonable thing I could do: I asked his Aunt Julie for the recipe and made him some caramels. And I’ve made them every ChristmasĀ since. I think things worked out to his advantage in the end, because now he has me to make his aunt’s caramels whenever he wants.
Warning: homemade caramels are addicting. Make them at your own risk.
Some things to know before you start –
Put all the sugars and butters in the pot before you turn on the heat. This way you can always be stirring and you won’t burn anything to the bottom.
No candy thermometer? No problem. If you don’t want to use a thermometer, you can use a bowl of ice and do softball testing to decide when the caramel is finished. If so, prepare a bowl of ice in advance for the softball stage testing. To test if the caramel is ready, pour batter onto ice and try to roll into a ball. If it rolls into a nice ball easily and isn’t too smooshy, it’s ready. You may not get this perfect on your first try, but you probably won’t ruin it even if not perfect.
How long will this take? All stovetop/pot combosĀ are a bit different, but I timed it this year and it takes me about 9 minutes after the mixture comes to a boil on medium+ heat to reach the proper consistency. Here is the mixture after it has been boiling a few minutes. Don’t stop stirring!
Prep the Wrappers! Cut wrappers in advance from parchment paper or buy wrappers pre-cut. After trying several pre-cut options, I decided I actually prefer cutting my own.
To cut after it has cooled and set, I use an extra large plastic cutting board and plop the entire blob of caramel out of the glass pan, straight onto the cutting board. Aunt Julie uses a pizza cutter to cut the individual pieces, but I like my caramel a bit chewier and so I use a knife.
Alright, you ready for the recipe now?!
Aunt Julie’s Homemade Caramels
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 1/2 cups light corn syrup
- 1 1/2 cups butter
- 1 can sweetened condensed milk
Instructions
- Cook in a heavy pan until the sugars dissolve into the butter.
- Add 1 can of sweetened condensed milk.
- Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, until it reaches just over 255 F or the boiling mixture passes the soft ball stage test (pour batter onto ice and try to roll into a ball).
- Pour into a greased 9×13 pan (glass pan).
- Let caramel fully cool (you can leave overnight).
- Cut into bite-size pieces with a knife or a pizza cutter.
- Wrap each piece in cellophane wrappers or parchment paper pieces. (I prefer parchment paper.)
Aunt Julie’s Caramels are now a permanent family tradition!
This year was so different than that first year. My baby twins are now amazing 10 year olds with a super helpful 8 year old sister. These girls are my wrapping assistants and make it so easy to wrap up a whole pan of caramel. They were wrapping them as fast as I was cutting them. Every 15 pieces they wrapped they got to eat a piece. So basically, they were paid for their work. Ha!
This guy was an adorable sidekick, but not so helpful. He played around us most of the time this year, but started to panic when he noticed the caramels were almost all wrapped, and then tried to grab as many unwrapped pieces as he could at the last minute. I can hardly blame him.
Homemade caramels have become a favorite tradition of ours. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do!
From my home to yours,
Mary
Love this entry. Love those children. Love those caramels. Love, Mom xoxo
They all love you too, Mom, including those caramels!
Are these soft caramels; hard (sucking) caramels; or soft-firm (read bites off smoothly) caramels?
The way I describe making them is between a soft and soft-firm (not exactly sure the difference), but the stiffness is all dependent on how long you cook it. I’ve made caramel syrup with this recipe by stopping after all the ingredients are melted together for a minute. If you want super soft, you’d wait until they were at a really soft non-balling stage, as in it doesn’t quite form a ball when you cool some with ice and try to form a ball with some of it. I go until it forms a soft ball, which is to say that when cooled with ice, I can roll some of it into a ball easily. So, the hardness is totally up to the cook.
Hope this helps!
We make 2 batches each time. One regular and one with black food coloring and anise oil flavoring for licorice caramels. Oh my heck they are good!!! š
They are that good!!