Candy Madness

I have had a recipe to make homemade caramels for

a while. I finally decided today that I would try and make them. This is the cook!
I have never been a big candy maker. I think I always found it a little intimidating, needing to watch it so closely and get it to just the right temperature, etc. I have made some before but not a lot. Here is the caramels in the early stages. I'm telling you, if you put cream, sugar and butter together and start cooking it, it smells divine!

Here it is finally getting close to the caramel stage. It took about 40 minutes of almost constant stirring and boiling and watching the thermometer. But it ended up turning out really well and I put it out to cool in it's pan.

While I was doing all that stirring, I was reading the other recipes that were next to the caramel one. There was a recipe for peanut brittle. I've never made it before. I read it and I thought, I have all those ingredients and I bet I could do it. So then I made peanut brittle! And it turned out great.

Next to that was a recipe for Cashew Toffee. I had those ingredients too. So I made that. It turned out OK, not quite perfect, but it tastes good (yes I did take a little taste of everything).

Finally I had a 1/2 cup of pumpkin that needed to be used up. I found a recipe for cranberry pumpkin Pecan muffins. I did a half recipe. They are divine. I put them in the freezer and gave one to my neighbor.

So here is how everything looks. The caramels are on top wrapped in wax paper. The muffins are pretty evident. The peanut brittle is in the front and the toffee in the back! I was so excited because I felt way less intimidated and now I have all this candy to use for gifts and when I have company, etc!!

So I guess I am a candy maker now!

I've been so good on my diet. I hope the scale doesn't do anything bad tomorrow morning after my tasting everything.