Saturday, December 17, 2011

Salted Caramels

The other day my mom gave me some of her candles because she doesn't light candles anymore. (Yes, I am one of the few who does not yet have a "Scentsy" type candle) One of the candles she gave me was the scent "Salted Caramel". Are you kidding me? I love salted caramel anything and now I have a candle so that my house can smell like it all the time. I immediately started using it and the next day my Mr. asks, "This candle makes me want to eat caramel". Ya... me too. Not sure if this is a good thing now! But it inspired me to make some salted caramels that I actually could eat. So the other day when I had about an hour of free time while my baby girl took a nap I decided to make some. I researched different recipes, since I was limited on time I wanted something that was a little easier than others. Then, I found this recipe from Inspired Taste and decided to go with it!

You only need 6 ingredients:
Salt
Heavy cream
Vanilla
Butter
Granulated sugar
corn syrup


 You will definitely need a candy thermometer. I got mine at Walmart for only $3. Totally worth it.
Boil the corn syrup and sugar together. Meanwhile in another saucepan warm cream and butter together until just barely reaches a simmer and remove from heat.
 Cook sugar and corn syrup over medium heat until it reaches 310 degrees. It will look like this. DO NOT STIR!!!
 Remove from heat and slowly add cream/butter mixture. Watch out it might jump out at you. Stir until smooth and place back on heat. No more stirring! Cook mixture until temperature is back up to 260 degrees.
 Line a bread pan with foil or parchment paper and make sure it is well greased!
 Pour caramel into bread pan and let cool for a few minutes. Then sprinkle with course salt.
 Cool completely on a wire rack. When it has cooled peel the caramel from the foil and cut into bite size squares.
 And then.... indulge....

So now I can enjoy the taste and smell of salted caramels.

Here is the recipe!!

For these, we used salted butter instead of unsalted, the extra salt in the butter really adds lots of flavor. We also use two types of salt in the recipe, first we used kosher salt, which goes into the caramels and a course sea salt that is sprinkled on top. The caramels themselves are slightly hard, but soften slowly in your mouth. These would make a perfect gift for the holidays!
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 1 hours, 20 minutes
Yield: 35 caramel candies
Ingredients
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 4 tablespoons salted butter, softened
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup light corn syrup
  • 1/4 teaspoon course sea salt
Method
  1. Line 9x5-inch loaf pan with foil; spray foil with cooking spray.
  2. In 1-quart saucepan, heat whipping cream, vanilla, kosher salt and 2 tablespoons of the butter over medium heat until mixture just begins to simmer. Remove from heat; cover with lid. Set aside.
  3. In 2-quart heavy saucepan, mix sugar and corn syrup; add candy thermometer. Cook over medium heat, stirring gently, until sugar is dissolved. If granules of sugar become stuck to sides of saucepan, use wet pastry brush to brush granules down towards syrup. Cook syrup, without stirring, until thermometer reads 310°F. If hot spots or darker areas occur while cooking, gently roll saucepan around to evenly disperse syrup.
  4. Remove saucepan from heat. Slowly pour cream mixture into syrup. Syrup will bubble violently so be careful to add cream slowly to ensure syrup does not bubble over edge of saucepan. Stir until smooth.
  5. Return saucepan to medium heat. Cook caramel until thermometer reads 260°F.
  6. Remove saucepan from heat; remove thermometer. Stir in remaining 2 tablespoons butter until caramel is smooth.
  7. Pour caramel into loaf pan. Cool 8 to 10 minutes. Sprinkle coarse sea salt evenly over top. Cool completely in pan on cooling rack.
  8. When caramel is cool, remove from pan by lifting foil. Peel foil from caramel. Using sharp long knife, cut into 35 to 40 squares. Wrap each caramel individually with waxed paper or cellophane.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Flowers



Look at what I've been working on. I have some lovely flowers I've been making, and the How-To to come! Have a Happy Weekend!

much love,

nicole

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Daily Dose

Well hello there everyone, I just thought I'd give everyone their daily dose of YouTube. Hope these videos don't disappoint.





Is it bad that I'm addicted to YouTube?
Even ridiculous ones like the rapping directly above I feel are worth my time.
Sorry if you have already seen the men and women can't be friends video, but not really sorry.

YouTube has my heart,

nicole

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Holly Jolly Mail Time

I love this time of the year. It seems as though every day there is a knock at the door and I am presented with a package. Oh the joy! Today I got a bright orange package that looked something like this:

 Finally! The Christmas cards that I ordered have arrived. Now it is time to address them and mail them. This usually may seem like a daunting task  but I am actually stoked to do it. They turned out perfectly! Remember how a few months back I was all stressed out about getting family pictures taken? Well thanks to my awesome Sis in Law they turned out so cute, especially the ones of my baby girl. I haven't shown anyone the pictures because I wanted the Christmas card to be fresh and new! So hopefully in the next few days I will have them all addressed and mailed out to everyone...


Then I can cross one more holiday task off of my list!

XOXO,
Whitney

Monday, December 12, 2011

Holla Dolla Dayzzzzz

It's the most beautiful time of the year... seriously I  be lookin so good this month all the boys are wanting to date me. Real life. Promise. Be jealous.


Here you have a few photos to look at from tonights events. Top left: just an action photo  of the ladies of the night, you want us? Bottom left: my winnings from tonights white elephant gift exchange, an orange t-shirt that says Gardening Alaska with a moose eating lettuce.. you want it? Right: Me lookin like a million bucks and a million pounds I ain't complainin tho cause if I would have arrived on time I would have won the Ugliest Sweater Award, you want to be me?


Hope your Holla Dolla Dayzzz (Holidays) are filled with white elephants, ugly sweaters, and amazing family and friends. This time of year is amazing and obviously brings out the best in me, just look at those pics! aw ya.

Happy Holidays,

nicole

Sunday, December 11, 2011

O, Christmas Wreath! O, Christmas Wreath!

I just might have been working on this Christmas Craft all week long but I am pretty happy with the results. It all started on Monday when I got all my christmas decorations out. I started putting up some decorations and even put up my tree this week. Then, I looked at my front door and saw that my fall wreath was still on the door and the problem is... I didn't have a Christmas wreath to replace it with. So I started looking online at ideas on making my own Christmas wreath. I found so many cute ideas for yarn wreaths but then I found this Snowball Yarn Wreath by Two Junk Chix and fell in love. First of all, I loved the grey tones and second of all I loved the texture of the yarn balls. All week my mom and I went on a search for supplies. Who knew that find a styrofoam and/or straw wreath would be so hard???? We literally went to every store and they were all sold out. We finally got lucky at Hobby Lobby the morning after they received a new shipment of inventory.

The supplies I used were:

1 yard of burlap (Hobby Lobby)
Yarn (2 shades of gray, whites, and a natural color)
Silver ornaments (60% off at Joanns)
Snowflakes & Embellishments  (60% off at Joanns)
24 Styrofoam balls - I used 2" and 2 1/2" sizes (Hobby Lobby)
LOTS OF HOT GLUE
Glue Gun
18" straw wreath (hobby lobby)

 It really was quite simple. First I wrapped my wreath in the burlap . And then really... all you need to do is know how to make yarn balls and how to use a hot glue gun. I just glued the yarn to styrofoam balls and wrapped until my hearts content! Once all the styrofoam balls are covered just glue to your wreath and add desired embellishments and TA DA....


I love it and am pretty proud of myself. And I love how it will also be fitting for January so now I have a wreath for December and January... look at me, killing two birds with one stone!

XOXO,
Whitney

Friday, December 9, 2011

What is a girl to do?

What is a girl to do with her day off you ask? Well I probably would do this.....



Have an Audrey Hepburn movie marathon.

I'm in the middle of this right now. My day is being well spent catching up on some well needed personal time with my favorite Audrey Hepburn. Can you blame me? She is gorgeous, has amazing style, and is oh so classy. I'm taking notes on how to be a little bit more of all those things. In my opinion this is so far a day will spent and will continue to be. My favorite movie is Funny Face, if you haven't seen it, you need to. "What you call funny, I call beauty"

Stay Classy,

nicole