Make Salted Chocolate Caramel Pecan Candies

I’m a huge sucker for Christmas baking and candy making. Every year, I try really hard to make a Christmas baking plan in November, and then start executing it weekly until my freezer is full of yumminess. The problem is my dear Hubby – one by one (or 6 by 6…), my baking stash is depleted nightly until I only have a meager supply at Christmas time. I’ve tried to hide cookies and mis-label candies, but nothing seems to deter my hungry second half.

I’ve made these salted chocolate caramel pecan candies for a few years now. They’re simple, they’re fun to make with kids, and they taste awfully like “Turtles”! Oh, yum.

The recipe I used was based loosely on this one, but I made several changes. I hope you enjoy these!

SALTED CHOCOLATE CARAMEL PECAN CANDIES

Ingredients:

• 32 wrapped caramel candies
• 64 milk chocolate baking discs
• 64 pecan halves
• coarse sea salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Cover a baking sheet with tin foil and grease the tin foil lightly with butter.
2. Place two pecan halves side-by-side on the baking sheet – two for each candy – until you have 32 pairs.
3. Unwrap all of the caramels (this is the perfect toddler job) and microwave them 8 at a time for 10-15 seconds until they are soft. Press them into a disc about an inch wide. Press the caramel discs onto the pecan pairs, one per pair.
4. Place the baking sheet into the oven for 3-5 minutes, or until the caramels have melted onto the pecans nicely.
5. Remove sheet from oven and wait a minute. Then, place two baking discs onto each pecan/caramel pile (put the baking discs flat bottom together, to make one thick disc – mmmmm, chocolate).
6. Place baking sheet back in the oven for another 2-3 minutes, until the chocolate has melted enough to manipulate. Take sheet out of oven, and spread chocolate slightly with a spoons to cover the caramels.
7. Finally, sprinkle a few grains of coarse sea salt on the chocolate, and let the candies cool.
8. Enjoy!

How do you hide your Christmas baking from your family?