Making truffles and chocolate-covered caramels

I thought these chocolate-dipped caramels were the best we'd ever made, but looking at last time, I'm not totally sure—they were pretty beautiful last time too. I don't know why we don't make these more often. Well, of course I know—they are time-consuming, and it's a big project to get everything out and put it away—but for how good they are, it isn't THAT hard. Every once in a while Sam will get me some chocolates from our favorite place in Salt Lake, Hatch Family Chocolates. They are delicious and so expensive. About $50 for a box of twenty-four.

We figured out that we can make the same amount of these chocolate caramels, even if we buy the nice dipping chocolate from Gygi, for about a third of that price. And we can easily make three times the amount for very little more work.

I understand why they charge so much! It is hard work, finicky, done by hand, and you probably have to factor in expensive equipment (a tempering machine is a few hundred dollars even for a small one) and maybe some failed batches. But we still thought, after seeing how well our own chocolates turned out and how good they tasted (just as good as Hatch's…if we do say so ourselves…and maybe, to my taste, even better!) that maybe we could try our hand at selling these at Christmas time or for Valentine's Day. I think the girls could make some good money doing that!

While the taste of our chocolates is great, our dipping technique is a work in progress. We got better as we went along!

Truffles

Caramels

We re-used the chocolate box we got from our Mrs. Cavanaugh's field trip to hold our own chocolates. Daisy made a beautiful little label for it.

We made up a box to give to Abe and my mom (he was living at her house at the time).

They were SO GOOD. I wish we still had some! We also tried our hands at raspberry and orange cream centers, which provided some delicious variety to the box, but I will put those in a different post!

Chocolate-Covered Caramels

Emboldened by our truffle success, we decided to make chocolate-covered caramels for Sam for Father's Day. At the crucial moment (as the caramel was already bubbling away merrily) I couldn't find my candy thermometer (!) so I had to make the caramels just by eyeing the color and using the "firm ball stage" ice-water method (!!) and they turned out perfectly anyway (!!!). I was very impressed with myself. I love caramels but I must say, chocolate-covered caramels are even better.

Here is my good, faithful, tried-and-true caramel recipe. It never fails me (although I have sometimes failed it).

Caramels

2 c. light karo syrup
2 c. sugar
½ t. salt

Stir well with wooden spoon and place on medium heat. Bring to a full rolling boil and add alternately but do not stop the boiling:

½ pt. (1 c.) whipping cream (unwhipped)
1 cube butter (cut in 5ths and dropped in separately)
½ c. + 1/3 c. evaporated milk

Add the above three things a little at a time. Put in a thermometer and cook to 233 degrees---this may take about half an hour. The caramel should be darkening but not too dark. You can put a small ball of caramel into ice water and then taste it to see if the chewiness is right. When caramels are done, remove pan from heat and add 1 t. vanilla. Pour into buttered 9x13 pan. Cool several hours or overnight, until caramel is set. 

For caramels, cut into squares and wrap individually in waxed paper.

For chocolate-covered caramels, dip squares into melted chocolate (make sure chocolate stays in temper while melting; that is, keep it under 88 degrees for milk chocolate or 90 degrees for dark chocolate) and place on parchment paper. Sprinkle with a few grains of sea salt, if desired.

The older boys helped do the dipping. They are getting really good at it!

We put a couple layers of these, sprinkled with a little sea salt, between waxed paper in a box for Sam and covered them with a sheet of tissue paper. They were every bit as good as any you'd buy at a fine chocolatier---if we do say so ourselves. :)