Whimsical Wife Chocolate Caramels

In honor of the Whimsical Wife who is under the weather and could not do her Tasty Tuesday Party, I am posting a tasty tuesday treat.  Valentines Day is next Tuesday you know.  (Stop over and tell her to get well soon!).

 My daughter made this monkey.  He is sitting on the bathroom shelf.  (Get over the dust sitting there too).  He is see no evil.  The recipe I am going to post is so good it's evil.

So here's the deal..... I'm a caramel maker.  I've perfected the golden brown treat and the only time I make it is at Christmas.  Every year for Valentines Day I buy 6 cheap heart shaped boxes of chocolates, one for each of my kids.  The married ones have to share.  Most of the time no one likes half the stuff in the box.  I do it only because I always have.



Not this year. This Valentines Day I am making a treat that everyone loves (especially me-shhhh!).  Not regular caramel...chocolate caramels.  Not caramels dipped in chocolate (although that would be good, hmmmm?).  Yeah, so Bliss, what's so special about that?  Well what makes these ones special is they are awesome, that's what.  I've tried no less than 10 chocolate caramel recipes over the past few years.  None were right.  Even though of course all the ingred's are pretty similar.  These ones were just what I wanted them to taste like.  You know those little dark suckers at See's Candy?  (They used to be a nickle when I was a kid), well these caramels are a chewy version of those.  YUMM. 

So 'ya know, I'm not a food blogger, I'm a food eater.  I won't post the whole recipe here, you can click over to Epicurious yourself.   I've tested, tasted, and made them, and they have the Bliss Candy Azz seal of approval.  The only changes I made were that I didn't line my pan-just seemed like it over complicated it, I just gave the glass pan a light wipe of butter and cut them in the pan then take them out.  I also made half the batch with the salt the other without cause some of my kids don't appreciate the sweet salty thing going on.  All I can tell you is mine turned out excellent, just the right texture, right taste, it was all good.  **recipe says to cook to 255° this makes them on the harder side.  I cook mine to 250-252°, also I use Ghirardelli 60% cacao chocolate bars from the baking section.  You need 10 oz. which is 2 1/2 bars**

If Brawn was kidnapped by aliens and sent back to earth all messed up and he could then cook stuff like candy - he'd make these for Valentines Day.   But since I don't see any spaceships hovering I'm gonna make them for all of us myself.

They look exactly like this.
Make some, and send a few to the Whimsical Wife, chocolate cures all.