This is going to be a quick post because I really need to attack my chore list early today so I can get going on my Ravelympics project. It’s day 5, which is a little late for a 17 day event, but I’m all over it. I don’t know which site to link to to talk about this so I will make tomorrow’s Work In Progress Wednesday post all about it. Very quick history though is that in 2006 a popular knitting blogger who also really liked to watch the winter Olympics had this idea that for the time period of the official Olympics, we should all knit something extremely challenging. ‘We’ being all of us who read her blog. It was fun, I made Wee One #2 (who was just a few months old at the time) a sweater. Then the next time the Olympics rolled around we did it again, but this time her blog was bigger so there were more knitters joining in. Eventually, Ravelry was born (sort of like Facebook for knitters) and every Olympic year since the tradition has kept going.

I promise to write a detailed post tomorrow because I’d love to have all the links in one place for myself and other knitters, but a lot of non-knitters are curious. There are so many different ‘teams’ on Ravelry, ranging from type of finished project to geographic location to just fun and silly things. The official ‘group’ on Ravelry also has knitting ‘events’ much like the actual Olympics. There is little organization to it, so there are often multiple groups for the same things. I am joining a local one to the South Bay of Los Angeles and probably whichever modular group (for my puff blanket) my sister is in. Eeeee! So fun!!

Extremely simple caramel recipe!! I initially made this to use in the Snickers Bars I recently made, but since then I’ve used it as an ice cream topping, dip for apple slices and berry skewers. The only thing that can throw you off here is allowing the caramel to stop boiling when you add the cream – so don’t!

2 cups sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 3/4 cups corn syrup
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Start off with the sugar, corn syrup, butter and a small amount of the heavy cream. Bring to a boil and add the rest of the cream s-l-o-o-o-o-o-w-l-y. Don’t let it stop boiling (and it will if you add too much cold cream too fast). Continue boiling until it reaches 240 degrees. Then pour it into a greased pan or a jar. If you plan to make candies with this, you can roll it into logs and wrap them in wax paper. Or you can use it in recipes! I used this caramel in the Snickers Bars I made a few months ago!

Phone calls and notes in the mail can convey love and thoughtfulness over a long distance, but I have found that nothing says ‘we love you’ like homemade treats in the mail. 🙂

These treats were made for the brother of one of my best friends. Her brother and my husband have also become friends over the years and those are the connections that make me happiest to see happen. They’re totally random and stuff like that can’t be forced so when it happens on it’s own, I just love to witness it. He has always been a fan of my cooking, baking, and slightly odder kitchen experiments – so this year I’m sending him a random treat in the mail once a month. January’s treat was Homemade Twix Bites.

This is one of those times when you go all out when you say you’re making something from scratch. If I had said I was making these from scratch and used store bought caramels I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night (I’ll let you decide if I’m kidding or not). Essentially, you make the caramel first, then you measure it out and find that you need to make another batch of caramel because you’re half a cup short. Ahem. Theeeen you make the shortbread base, make the caramel layer (with the scratch caramel of course) and pour it over the base. Once it’s set you cut out bar shapes, dip them in chocolate and you’re done. HOWEVER, that last step sounds a lot simpler and prettier than it really is. When making cake pops, or chocolate covered nuts or berries, it’s a lot easier to handle because you’re dealing with much smaller pieces to dip in chocolate. Also, those things don’t melt when they come into contact with liquid chocolate. The caramel, even chilled in the fridge for hoooours was totally running and falling apart on me when I tried to add the chocolate layer. So I took a moment, made a martini and wished I had bought the chocolate bar molds when I bought the wee chocolate square molds – and then I thought oh yeah those wee chocolate square molds!! I cut my bars into bites and tah dah!! Much, much easier and way prettier looking too.

To make the caramel put all the ingredients in a microwave safe bowl. Just dump it all in.
Mix it up.	Microwave it for 6 minutes, taking it out every 2 minutes to stir it.
Let it set.	Now start the cookie base! Preheat the oven to 300F, and combine the icing sugar with the butter and the vanilla extract.
Add the flour and mix till incorporated.	Mix! Mix! Mix! Spread it in a 9″ x 13″ (ish) pan and bake for about 35 minutes.
Mmmm fresh caramel….	Mmmm fresh shortbread….
While the cookie base is cooling, it’s time to make the caramel layer. Pour 2 cups of caramel into a saucepan.	Add 3 tablespoons of heavy cream to the caramel and cook.
This sheet of shortbread is about to be seriously upgraded.	Cover it evenly in caramel sauce.
Now it needs to be popped into the fridge for AT LEAST a couple of hours, leaving it overnight will save you much heartache.	The chocolate layer is just the standard, melt the chocolate in a double boiler (or in a heat safe bowl over a pan of simmering water) and add the vegetable shortening.
This is where it got tricky. It is near impossible to ‘dip the bars in chocolate’ without the caramel sliding off. So I put down a layer of chocolate for the bottoms.	Then I slathered the chocolate over top. My husband ate these ones. They’re good but ugly.
See? Yummy but ugly. So very ugly.
This is when I had that stroke of genius I mentioned earlier. LE DUH. So I filled the mold with chocolate & put a bite sized version on top.	I covered those babies with more chocolate and voila!
Just as yummy and now even prettier. I recognize they will not be winning any presentation prizes, but that’s alright.
Since they were mailed, I wanted their little caramel souls to be protected so I wrapped them up in tin foil.	Individually!
In case you were wondering, yes he loved them! I’m sure he felt the love that was my husband & I messing around in the kitchen at 3am making these chocolate treats!