Chloe's Caramels

Dairy-free Caramel

1 cup Earth Balance margarine
2 cups sugar
1 can (14.5 ounce) coconut milk plus enough almond milk to make a total of 2 cups (coconut milk and almond milk combined)
1 cup light corn syrup replacement (see below) or light corn syrup
1 1/2 teaspoon gluten free vanilla

Prepare your pan/s:  Line an 8 inch x 8 inch pan with parchment or, if dipping apples, cover a baking sheet with parchment and poke the sticks into the apples.  I do this by  very lightly oiling my pan, then laying in the parchment so the parchment does not slide around. If you will be coating apples, you can cover a few apples and then place the remaining caramel in a smaller parchment lined container such as a bread loaf pan for the caramel you will have leftover.  If making caramel sauce, have a canning jar and lid ready.  I use a canning jar, pouring the sauce into a clean canning jar, letting the sauce cool before capping and storing in the refrigerator.  Heat caramel sauce by putting uncovered jar in a sauce pan with water and heating to desired temperature.  

Place the margarine, sugar, coconut/almond milk mixture and corn syrup replacement in a large saucepan.  Clip candy thermometer to saucepan.  Slowly bring ingredients to a low boil stirring very, very often.  Keeping things at a low boil prevents the caramel sugars from forming grainy crystals, prevents boil over and hot sugar spatters.  

Cook over medium-high heat while continuing to stir often until candy reaches 248 degrees F. For softer caramels cook to 243 for softer caramels.  If you are making caramel sauce for dairy-free ice cream or for less sticky caramel (like I did for my daughter with braces) cook the caramel to 230 degrees.  This takes quite a while generally 1 ½ to 2 hours with my stove, so I will do this while I have other things I am puttering around with in the kitchen.  Trust me it is worth it!  You could cook it at a little higher temp than I do so it goes faster, but then you need to stir continuously.  It starts out very milky looking, but will become a nice caramel color when cooked.  Mmmmm…

Remove saucepan from heat and stir in vanilla. 

If making caramels:  Pour into the prepared lined baking pan.  Cool the caramel completely.  Us the parchment to lift out the caramel.  Snip with an oiled kitchen scissors or sharp knife .  Wrap in waxed paper.

via: Angela's Kitchen