Turtle Candies

I know, this is a horrible picture, but when you find yourself in the midst of a candy-making spree, hands covered in gooey caramel and chocolate, the last thing you think of is grabbing a camera. This one happens to be courtesy of my wonderful husband.

These turtles were a fun experiment for me. I have recently been making homemade soft caramels like crazy, but wanted to try a new spin on it. So in this post, I'll give you the caramel recipe first(which you will need to make these) and then the rest.  I recommend you read the recipe in its entirety before you start, and gather all your ingredients. When making candy there's not always time to be running around looking for things.  Be forewarned, this recipe is time consuming and a bit labor intensive, but  if you get a sort of assembly line going then it can be kind of relaxing. They make great holiday gifts, freeze well, and ship well.




TURTLE CANDIES
Raw whole pecans
Homemade caramel (Recipe Below)
Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
Coconut oil

Preheat your oven to 350. Spread your pecans on a baking sheet in a single layer.  Toast the pecans in the oven until they start to smell wonderful, usually 5-8 minutes. Set your timer, it's easy to forget about them and burn them. Let them cool.

HOMEMADE CARAMEL
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
2 cups sugar (I prefer brown, but white, brown or a mix of the two is fine )
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 cup corn syrup (light or dark is fine, i have even used real maple syrup in a bind but that's an expensive substitute)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Equipment
4 quart sauce pan or soup pot
9x13 pan
candy thermometer(check its accuracy by putting it in water that has attained a rolling boil, it should read 212 degrees, if not then you can just compensate a few degrees one way or the other)
wooden spoon
parchment paper
nonstick cooking spray(to spray your measuring cups)

Line your 9x13 pan with parchment paper(make sure it covers the sides too, this will keep your carmel from sticking, and is much neater than cooking spray with no taste)
In the large saucepan melt the butter on medium heat, stirring constantly.  Add your sugar and stir until it becomes dissolved. Add the corn syrup and sweetened condensed milk and salt. Attach your thermometer so you can keep an eye on the temperature, make sure its in the caramel but not touching the bottom of the pot.  Keep stirring and keep scraping the sides.  Once the caramel starts to bubble you need to keep a close eye on the temperature. As soon as it hits 238 add the vanilla, it will bubble and boil like crazy for a second. When it reaches 240 take it off the heat and pour it in the parchment lined pan.*** Now you can let it cool for an hour or so in the fridge, then cut it and wrap it in wax paper, or you can dip your pecans in it. Be careful! This stuff is HOT!
     ***A great way to check the consistency of your caramel is to drop a few drops straight into a bowl of very cold water.  It should flatten out, but not disperse.  It should form a soft malleable ball between your fingers. This is called soft ball stage, and melts in your mouth. 240 has been my magic number but depending on weather, your stove, there can be little fluctuations. The water test is a pretty sure fire way to check.

Line your work surface with parchment paper.  One by one, dip and roll your pecans in the caramel to get a good coating. Lay them to cool on the parchment paper.  After your dipped pecans have cooled, melt 2 cups of semi sweet chocolate chips with 1 tbsp coconut oil in the microwave in 30 second increments, stirring in between, until smooth.  If you need to add a teaspoon of water or two to smooth it out thats ok, but don't add more than that, your chocolate won't harden again. Now dip and roll your caramel pecans into the chocolate to get a good coating. Let them cool on the parchment paper.  If you run out of chocolate, melt some more. Let them cool, and store in an airtight container with wax or parchment paper between layers for up to two weeks. Or in the freezer for much longer than that (they never last very long in our house so I really don't know how long they will keep!)

If you have leftover caramel, put it back in the fridge to harden a bit. Then you can cut it into pieces and wrap it in wax paper. Wrap as you go, because if you cut it all it will start to melt back into itself.  The caramel also makes great gifts, but be careful about gifting this batch to anyone with nut allergies since you were just dragging a whole bunch of pecans through it.  I sliced a bunch of almonds and kneaded them into it to make it apparent that there were nuts in it!