Microwave Caramel: Another Pinterest Experiment

 Before I get into the food stuff, we gotta talk.

There seems to be a lot of talk going on about the way I say certain things.... like caramel.... or crayons.
So let's get this straight.


CAR-MEL: (See the word "colonel" for my reasoning. It's foolproof.) It's only CAR-A-MEL if you want to sound pretentious... like when you're selling fancy CAR-MEL with shiny labels and you want rich people to buy them.

CRAHNS: Come on people, let's be honest. Kindergarten is tough enough already... let's not complicate things by forcing small children to use extra syllables when explaining what Tommy stuffed up his nose.

 
And clearly, since you are reading this on the internet, this is true. End of discussion. (There's comment boxes below if you feel the need to express yourself on this matter.)


Okay. Now that that's out of my system, we can get back to the point of this post:




Microwave Caramel:

I know. It sounds wrong, right? Caramel is supposed to make a sticky mess & ruin a pot to turn out right.

Or so I thought.


I found this recipe through pinterest: Microwave Caramels, and since I love trying new things... I decided to give it a shot.

I'll summarize here: This recipe has 5 ingredients and 5 instructions, and one of the instructions is "let cool". Really, there's no excuses on this one. It's basically the easiest thing ever.

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter 

1/2 cup white sugar 

1/2 cup brown sugar 

1/2 cup light Karo syrup 

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk 

Directions: 

1 Combine all ingredients. 

2 Cook 6 minutes, stirring every two minutes. 

3 Stir and pour into lightly greased dish. 

4 Let cool. 

5 Cut, wrap in wax paper & store in air tight container.

Some people get all fancy and put sea salt on them (in which case I GUESS you could call them CAR-A-MELS... if you really, really, want to. I promise I won't call you pretentious. butImightThinkit). 

Others put peanuts in the pan first, then the caramel, then add chocolate when it's cooled. Instant yummy-gooey-goodness turtles.

My Experience

I only had two issues with this recipe. The first is that it didn't tell me how large of a pan to use. I made this a while ago, but I'm pretty sure I ended up using a 9x13, which was too big. The molten caramel didn't even go to the edges of the pan, which made them really thin. I'm betting a 8x8 would be a much better size. (Make sure you spray the pan or line it with foil, or you really will have a sticky mess and a ruined pan.)

My second issue was that it didn't specify the microwave wattage. The microwave I used must have had a higher wattage, because 6 minutes was too long for me. (I know, I know... this could all be avoided if I had a candy thermometer. I don't, okay?) My caramels went hard quickly, which made it quite the adventure to cut them up! 

(The dogs loved it. The first couple of pieces I chopped sent little bitty caramel pieces in a couple of directions... which they happily cleaned up for me before anyone could tell them not to.)

Pardon the creepy eyes and the blurry head. Trust me, they're adorable in person.

Even though they turned out a little hard, the caramels were still delicious!! They did require a little patience to eat, but it was worth it! 

I am definitely planning having another go at them as soon as I have my own kitchen again. With a little play, I bet they'll turn out delish!

The shapes get a little wonky when it's hard to cut.

Shout out to my super-cute niece for being my hand model. :D