I made caramel!

For the first time ever I tried making caramel and it was a success.  A yummy mouth-watering success.  I may or may not have accidentally cut some into weird shapes that mysteriously disappeared...

I have no pictures.  Why?  Because it has been miserable and cold and rainy for a few days, and so also too dark for any good pictures (including pictures of the mural I did in my kitchen.  Coming soon...), but here's the link to the recipe on Our Best Bites for Apple Cider Caramels.

I calibrated my thermometer first in a pot of boiling water and, big surprise, my cheap Wal-mart thermometer says water boils at 206 F instead of 212.  So I adjusted accordingly, well, sort of.  I realized 1/2 way through that I adjusted the wrong way.  I cooked the mix to 6 degrees hotter than you're supposed to before adding the rest of the cream, but it looks like it didn't matter at all and they are still yummy.  They look just like the picture.  Yay.  I have loved everything I have made from Our Best Bites.
Correction: I recently looked up the boiling temperature of water at my elevation (2700ft) and water boils at 207.4 here, so my cheap Wal-mart thermometer wasn't so bad after all.  I'm not sure how that was supposed to affect candy making, but I'm glad it turned out well anyway.

Christmas Candy Advent

We love our Christmas Countdown at our house because it's made of candy. Who doesn't love Christmas candy? My mom made me this Santa hook years ago and we use it every year. Think of it as candy portion control.

This Christmas countdown is simple to make.

All you need is:

-Some kind of hook

-About 7 feet of plastic wrap (red or green plastic wrap also looks nice)

-Enough candy for everyone in your family to have one piece each day, so 75 pieces for us. Two 8 oz bags of Hershey's kisses was enough.

-Colorful ribbon cut in about 7 inch pieces

Just lay our your plastic wrap and place the candies on it, one day at a time. Separate each day with a ribbon tie.

Keep on going until you have 25 days, or in our case 29 since I don't like to wait until December to start.

Just cut below the candy each day and eat your treats. Christmas will be here before you know it.