Christmas Caramels

Christmas Caramels!!

This is the first year we are going to do neighbor gifts in a long time! Our neighborhood participates in an Annual Food Drive that benefits the Utah Food Bank. We have a big get together in the neighborhood on donation night. Sometimes we watch a small version of the Nativity Scene, sometimes we have hot cocoa and listen to some of the beautiful voices in our neighborhood sing carols and this year, we had a full sit down dinner WITH short Nativity done by the kids in our neighborhood.

Food Donations and spending time together is IN LIEU of Neighbor Gifts. BUT - this year is a little different. We have been in this neighborhood for 8 years but just moved 1 street over almost a year ago. It's our first Christmas in our new house with our new neighbors. We live on a circle and we are the ONLY FAMILY on the street! Everyone else has lived here for years and their children have all grown up and moved away. We didn't see anyone from our little street at the Neighborhood Party but I wanted to let all of them know how much we love living here and that we appreciate them - so I came up with this!

I buy a 5 lb loaf of Peter's Caramel every year at Orson Gygi. It's a lot of caramel - but it stays good for such a long time - as long as it's stowed away in a zip top bag.

I bought the Caramel loaf in September and we've made a bunch of treats - well MAINLY white chocolate covered caramel apples with cinnamon sugar sprinkles (we are ALL obsessed!!)

It's a few days before Christmas and I came up with a brilliant idea! I already had the caramel loaf, I had the foresight to buy individual candy wrappers a few months ago - so here's what we did.

Lay parchment paper on a baking sheet. Put caramel loaf on top of the parchment paper. Set in the cold oven and heat to 200 degrees. When the oven reaches 200 degrees - turn it off. Pull the baking sheet out of the oven and set a piece of parchment paper on top of the caramel - then put the underside of a second baking sheet on top of that. Use the baking sheet to press the caramel into about a 1/2" sheet of caramel. I also used a rolling pin. If you need to - return it to the cooling down oven to get it a bit easier to work with.

Use a pizza cutter or food scraper to cut the large caramel slab into 1 1/2" rows. Then cut those rows down into about 1 1/2" pieces. Roll the caramel into a cohesive piece and wrap individually. 

We put them into a clear baggie - tie with some Merry Christmas ribbon and add a note!