Still in the Valentine dog house? – Redneck cooking

Tired of the doghouse? Want your wife to forgive you? Make her thees tasty chocolate-covered caramels and no more nights with Fido.

So you’ve been sharing space with the dog for a week now. You thought that since you like getting power tools for gifts, your wife would love the new vacuum cleaner. Well, I’m going to help you get out of the dog house and back in your own bed. Both you and Fido will thank me so give yourself a flea dip and read on.

You’ve tried buying flowers, leftover candy, even one of the really expensive Teddy bears and she is still looking for a good divorce lawyer while Fido is looking at your neck wondering if he can get a good bite on it.

The way to get back in her good graces is simple — cook her favorite meal for her and give her some of these tasty homemade chocolate-covered caramels. This will show her how much you care about her and no one can resist the sweet, rich, gooey goodness of these candies.

Caramel is really easy to make, but it does require some attention to detail. The heat is the key to good caramel: Get it too hot and it will get hard instead of gooey, not hot enough and it will be runny. This makes good popcorn balls, or ice cream topping, but it is hard to dip in chocolate.

Chocolate-covered Caramels

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Ingredients:

caramel

1 cup butter
2 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

chocolate

1 pound milk chocolate
1 tablespoon butter

Grease an 8 x 8 inch pan.

Melt the butter in a large sauce pan on medium heat.

Add the brown sugar, corn syrup, and condensed milk to the butter.

Stirring constantly heat the mixture to 242 to 248 degrees F. I usually shoot for 245 degrees. I have no particular reason for that temp other than it falls in the range and is easy to see that mark on my candy thermometer. My wife always uses the cold water drop method to tell when her caramel is ready. I have never had good luck with that method so I stick to the thermometer.

When the temp is reached remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Pour into the 8×8 pan and let cool until it is set. I like to let mine sit over night in the fridge to get good and set. This makes it much easier to cut into pieces and to dip in the chocolate.

Once the caramel is cooled cut it into one inch squares. You can see from the picture I did not get all of them exactly one inch square, but they taste just as good.

Melt the chocolate with the tablespoon of butter. You can do this in the microwave, or you can use a double boiler. If you don’t have a double boiler pan use a metal bowl that will fit on top of a sauce pan leaving enough room in the pan for an inch or two of water. Make sure that the bowl does not touch the water or you will get the chocolate too hot and have problems.

When the chocolate is melted dip the caramel pieces in and coat them thoroughly. Place them on a sheet of wax paper on a cookie sheet and place in the fridge to cool.