Ed's Caramels

As long as I've known Janene, she has always talked about the caramels that her Grandfather made. She shared the recipe with me this year, and now I understand why she can't forget them. Relatively easy to make, simple ingredients, and they taste amazing! Many thanks go out to Janene's Grandfather, Ed Clites, for passing this recipe through his family and now on to me.

1 cup butter

2 1/4 cups packed brown sugar

2 cups half and half

1 cup light corn syrup

2 tsp vanilla

chocolate bark

• Line 8x8 pan with parchment and spray with pam


• In a really big sauce pan melt butter, then add brown sugar, half and half, and corn syrup and mix over medium high heat til boiling.


• Lower heat to medium and keep stirring until a good candy thermometer reaches 248 degrees (this takes a very very very long time!)


• Remove pan from heat and stir in vanilla


• Pour in lined pan and let cool completely (this took about 3 hours)

At this point I poured melted chocolate bark over the top and let it cool for another hour, then cut and wrapped each piece in foil squares that I bought at craft store. Janene typically cuts the caramels into squares first, and then dips each completely in the chocolate and wraps in parchment paper squares.

(I made a total of 4 batches, which resulted in about 250 caramels.)