The beginning of a turtle candy
From a picture that I saw on Pinterest but didn't think I needed to look up directions
This week started out with such good intentions. I was going to make some St. Patrick's day themed treats and I realized that my mom's birthday was coming up. I looked on the list I've started for desserts I want to make and caramel was on it. My mom loves the "Turtle" candy - perfect I'll make that and it will cover 2 things! There are warnings on every recipe for caramel
stating that it can be tricky to make. It took my 5 times to get it right! Then when I finally did, and after the "happy dance", I realized that I'd spent all that time making caramel sauce, and to make the turtles I needed caramel chews! To take a break, I decided to make the first St. Patty's treat. No problem, I remembered what the picture looked like in my head. After all it was so simple that I didn't even save it or anything. So in my first attempt (that's right that means there was another one) I put all the white chips and mint M&M's onto the pretzel and put it into the oven. I only left them in for 2 minutes at a time and would check on them. I expected the chips to melt right away but they weren't. After the 3rd 2 minutes, the chips turned brown and were nasty burned. The green candies were a little overdone as well but they could be saved. So then I tried it again and put just the white chips onto the pretzels and "baked" them for less time and stuck the green ones into the center while everything was still warm. That did what I was hoping but later when I tried to store everything in a bag to take on the road, it all fell apart. Fortunately I was feeding it all to college students and they didn't mind what it all looked like because the taste was still good.
I then went back to the caramel and made the chewy kind. My learning curve was much better and I was able to get it right the first time. However after scooping out the caramel while it was still warm, instead of pouring it onto the pecans, I made it crystallize. At least that's what I think I did to make that happen. Again, the college students home for Spring Break are perfectly willing to eat my mistakes and wait for my next batch to compare. I still have to dip the candies in chocolate for their final coating. I'll get to that and post again. I'm also going to get to some more St. Patty's day treats for our next car trip this coming weekend! My mom ended up getting sick and couldn't make it over to celebrate too, so her birthday cake will also be coming soon!
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