When I was a kid, there was only one thing more tempting than my dad’s chocolate candy stash he kept hidden behind the coffee canister on the shelf in the kitchen that only he could reach.

…And that “thing”, was caramel.

I don’t know where the craving came from. I can’t tell you when I first tasted its richness, or when its delightfully chewy texture first crossed my palate.

I can, however, tell you about the first time indulging in my favourite candy became a “no-no” and how I landed on my orthodontist’s naughty list.

It was fairly early on when I realized how much I loathed any sort of orthodontia.

My first experience with an orthodontist yielded a mouthful of spacers, as my parents decided to act immediately on their recommendation to fit my mouth with an “oral appliance”. Basically, it was a spikey tongue guard that kept my tongue from pressing against the back of my teeth….

Conversely, it kept anything from entering my mouth as well, including food. Two weeks of spacers and suddenly I had this giant metal tongue guard in my mouth, keeping me from eating, speaking, or breathing the without some difficulty. The first night my mom took me and a couple of my friends out to dinner at the neighbourhood burger joint, sort of as a “sorry ’bout the giant metal monster in your mouth, how about we go to dinner” consolation prize.

Imagine my horror as I attempted to bite down on my burger only to realize- Oh yeah, there’s that big spikey metal in my mouth, I should probably cut this up before I try to chew it. yeah, I had to cut my burger into a million tiny bites before eating it.. With a fork. My friends all laughed. I turned red. Talk about embarrassing.

However, it only took me a few months to get settled into things, and the giant metal monster eventually became my tiny metal friend, as I found the thing was pretty fierce looking and intimidating to the schoolyard bullies. Fourth grade was a dangerous place to be.. Even more dangerous if you’re picking on the girl with the metal spikes in her mouth. *grin*

Unfortunately, about a year into my two year dental imprisonment, I had a slight mishap in the family swimming pool. I was singing “somewhere over the rainbow” in a contest with one of my friends, and I twirled a little wide, causing me to land face first, open mouth- into the edge of the swimming pool (crazy children, don’t ask).

I guess my orthodontist felt sorry for me, or maybe it was the huge hole in the roof of my mouth that caused them to end my stay and remove the appliance permanently.

I thought I was free…

But about a year later, my dentist springs it on me that I *might* need braces. *Might* meaning- Come back next week and we’ll get it started!

Anyways, this time I was older and more set in my ways. When my Orthodontist sat me down and gave me the list of “can’t do- can’t have” for my brace wearing years.. I got so mad I wanted to throw things. I think I actually cried. “They’re going to deprive me of POPCORN?!” This simply couldn’t be.. “What? NO CARAMEL EITHER!?!” *sigh* It wasn’t fair. I planned on not listening whatsoever. I mean.. really, how are they going to know if I ate caramel when they weren’t around?

Well. They knew.

And I paid for it. Not only with the obvious pain it caused by popping brackets and breaking wires… In addition to that, my orthodontist added THREE MONTHS to my “braces release date”. Apparently I as more stubborn than they thought, because by the time I reached 5 years with braces, when my original sentance was only three and a half years, I turned 16 and my parents let me decide if I wanted to keep my braces on or have them removed- BECAUSE I STILL HADN’T BEEN RELEASED.

I took the get out of braces free card, stopped by park place for my retainers and never stopped running. My orthodontist thought the whole thing was pretty funny, and as going away present, she gave me a whole pound of Brach’s caramels.

I’m a little older now, but still very much in love with all things caramel.

You can see it in the things that I bake. One of my most favourite ingredients is caramel.

So I decided today to start off my holiday candy recipe collection with a more grown up yet still classic version of the every day caramel. Something special for the holidays, or everyday…

And here is the recipe-

Hot buttered rum- cream caramels

2 cups white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup organic corn syrup
1 cup evaporated milk
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon rum extract
1 teaspoon butter flavouring
1 teaspoon hazelnut (or almond) extract
a pinch of ground cloves
a pinch of nutmeg
a pinch of cinnamon

Line a 9×13 inch pan with waxed paper and spray with a light coat of non-stick spray.

In a medium-size pot, combine sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, evaporated milk, whipping cream, and butter, and heat over medium heat until it reaches 250 degrees F.

Once the mixture has reached 250 degrees, mix in the rum, butter and hazelnut extracts, as well as the pinch of ground cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon. Mix throughly. Transfer the mixture to the prepared pan and allow it to cool completely without being disturbed. Once the mixture has come to room temperature, chill it for about half an hour in the fridge before cutting.

Once you’ve cut the caramels into small pieces, wrap them tightly in waxed paper and keep them in a sealed container away from moisture. The amount of caramels this recipe yields varies depending on the size of your pieces, but mine were about 2″x 3/4″x3/4″ and I made 80 of them. Heh.. though you wouldn’t know it by how many have disappeared since my husband came home and found out I made caramel. HA!

If you’re looking for a fun, easy but fancy schmancy food gift for your loved ones this holiday season, I’d definately recommend this recipe. Its so simple, and so tasty. And who doesn’t love little hand wrapped caramels, anyways?

…well, besides maybe my orthodontist.

-A.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 3:20 am and is filed under November 2007, The Adventures of Rodney Robot, The Cupcakes!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.