This is the recipe for the carmels Heide Janssen made and shared at work this week. They are SO GOOD!!!

For the carmels, below is the base recipe.  For the flavors, I just added ingredients that sounded good.

For the Bourbon and Nutmeg, I used about a pint of Bourbon and grated in 2 whole nutmegs.

For the Pear and Cardamom, I used about 2 cups of Pear Juice and maybe 2 tablespoons of Cardamom.

(I didn’t really measure ingredients for the flavors.)

Tom’s Carmels

1 pound of butter (4 sticks)

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 16oz bottle of Karo syrup

1 2-lb bag of brown sugar

PREP:  Buy a roll of wax paper and cut into the desired size for your wrappers.  

PREP:  To delineate flavors, I put in a strip of various colored ribbon.  If you make flavors, I suggest cutting these in advance.

PREP:  Line a sided cookie sheet with aluminum foil and butter the entire surface.

On medium heat, pour in all the ingredients and start on low heat and slowly increasing the heat over time.  Cook until it gets to 248 degrees, stirring frequently.  Don’t let the mixture heat up too fast.  If the temp is rising fast, turn down the heat for a while.  The boiling process should take about 30 minutes.  If you try to rush it, it doesn’t get nice and creamy.  And if you start it on high heat, you will burn the sugar before it has a chance to dissolve.

If you want to get really technical with the boiling, keep a bowl of ice water next to the pot.  As the carmel gets close to the temp, drizzle a little onto the ice.  This makes it cool immediately and lets you test it for taste and texture.  Basically, it helps you to know if the mixture is where you want it before you take it off the heat.

Once you hit the 248 degrees, pour the hot mixture into the cookie sheet.  Let it cool on the counter top for about 30 minutes then put in the frig to cool the rest of the way.  Once hardened, take them out of the pan and cut into the size pieces that you want.  Don’t cut them all at once and don’t put cut pieces into a pile.  They will start to stick to each other.  Cut a few at a time and keep the rest of the carmel in the frig.  Wrap individual pieces in wax paper.