Pink Sea Salted Caramels

Scattered Pink salt before it cooled.

I like to give food gifts and this one is perfect as most people love caramel and salted caramel is even better. This recipe easily halves for an 8x8 pan and use of a smaller pot. As with all candies, a good thermometer that clips to the pot is necessary. Also, make sure you use a large pot because it bubbles up quite a bit.
this makes 8 dozen pieces, which is a lot.

Pink Sea Salted Caramels 

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

4 cups sugar

3 cups heavy cream

1 1/3 cup light corn syrup

1 cup unsalted butter

2 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon pink sea salt or other fancy salt like Fleur De Sel

To prepare the pan make a saddle of two sheets of parchment which cross each other when lining a 9x13 inch pan. 

Combine sugar, heavy cream, corn syrup, butter, and fine sea salt in a 5-quart saucepan. Stirring frequently, cook on medium heat until the butter melts and the mixture starts to boil. Clip on a candy thermometer.

Not quite there. The mixture turns that lovely caramel color, of course.

Continue cooking and stirring until the temperature reaches 245ºF. (This will take about 30 minutes.) Lower the heat as needed to prevent bubbling over. As soon as the mixture reaches 245ºF, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Immediately pour into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the pink sea salt. 

Let the caramels set for at least two hours and up to overnight. Lift the caramel out of the pan using the parchment paper. Cut into pieces using kitchen shears, seriously a knife will not do it.. Wrap individual caramels in pieces of waxed paper or parchment, but wax paper is the better choice in this appilcation. Store at room temperature.