Salted caramels

For Christmas this past year, my close friend Danielle gave me a gift certificate for a cooking class at Cooks of Crocus Hill called "Mastering Sauces"  The idea sprung from our recent trip to Chile last year.  We noticed that Chileans are sauce fiends and decided that sauces really do make a meal, but neither of us knew how they seemed to make them so tasty.  


Two weeks ago, I cashed in my cooking coupon.  We learned how to make dressings, gravy, bechamel, hollandaise, herbed butter, pesto and salted caramel sauce.  The caramel sauce inspired me to make salted caramel candies.  The technique is identical with the sauce except the temperature needs to be raised slightly higher; to the soft ball stage, before removing from the heat.


I gathered all the ingredients and proceeded to fail miserably 3 times before deciding that my candy thermometer must be broken.  The second time, my candies were so hard it took 4 days of soaking my pyrex in water before all caramel remnants had dissolved. 


New thermometer in hand, I set out to try just one more time and finally.....success