Caramels

I have never been amazing at making caramels. My little brother, Nathan, makes killer caramel. We use the same recipe, but somehow his ALWAYS comes out 100 times better than mine. Which of course, means that it is all user error. After asking my mom a few questions about her recipe and why my caramel always came out wrong, I realized that my recipe was not entirely the same as my mom's, which is the one my brother uses. I had written down one very important part of the recipe very wrong. I wrote down to heat the caramel to hard ball stage. Does that sound wrong to anyone else? If not, you are not alone. It never crossed my mind that it could be wrong. But if you think about it, you want your caramel to be soft and chewy. It would only make sense to heat it to soft ball stage, right? I changed that one little thing and voilà!
Caramels

2 cups sugar
3/4 cups white Karo Syrup or light corn syrup
1 cube butter (1/2 cup)
1 can evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped nuts, optional (I like to use walnuts)

Butter the bottom and sides of an 8x8 glass pan. Sprinkle with nuts if desired. Set aside.

Mix together sugar, butter, corn syrup, and 1/2 of the milk in a large sauce pan. Stir in high heat until boiling. Then add the rest of the milk. Turn to medium heat and cook, stirring constantly, to 240 degrees (soft ball stage). Once it reaches  240 degrees, remove from heat and add vanilla. Pour into buttered pan. When cool, cut and wrap in waxed paper.

Enjoy!