candy making

there are some exciting things happening around here. we are in full christmas mode. we have decided to make homemade candy for gifts this year. our first project was to make some caramel for all my girlfriends at the ladies luncheon i am going to. this sounded easy enough for us.

we started off using a barefoot contessa recipe but it didn't turn out very good. the caramel separated while cooking and even though we were able to save it by adding a little water and reheating it, the flavor was slightly off. it tasted a little bit burnt. we tried again with this recipe. we had a much better result. it is a lighter caramel but super yummy and much easier to make. we decided to make it even better by layering walnuts in the caramel and then drizzling bittersweet chocolate over the top. yum. they are so so good. i think miles and i have eaten ten each.

we made a triple batch and that gave us enough to package twelve gifts for the girls and have half a pan left over for other friends and family. i think they look so beautiful packaged in the little candy box with custom made tags. now that we have finished making caramel it is time for chocolate bark. yum yum. oh the holidays are so delicious.