The Gift of Not Sharing (Microwave Caramels, DO NOT STIR)

Sometimes I give the gift of not sharing. Like today.

Today is Christmas Eve, and our family tradition is for me to make pan after pan of caramels and for the kids to wrap them and then we go caroling to the neighbors and take bags of delicious homemade caramels. I love it. The kids love it. It’s tradition!

But starting last Wednesday, my kids all got colds. This cold’s first onset is a strange, irrational grumpiness. And then it morphs into a headache and dizziness and a sniffly nose and general misery and fever and sleeping for days.

This is not something, in this season of giving, that we’d like to give to others.

And so, this morning I decided to scrap the caramels plan and just have us all sit around and enjoy one another’s company eating microwave popcorn and, I must admit, watching Korean dramas on Netflix. What could be better?

So, instead of sharing actual caramels, I’ll share my AMAZING caramels recipe. Enjoy, people. Enjoy!

Microwave Caramels

1/2 cup each of the following:

melted butter

brown sugar

white sugar

light corn syrup (like Karo)

sweetened condensed milk

Combine all ingredients in a microwave safe bowl. Stir well to get out all brown sugar lumps. Microwave for 5 minutes 42 seconds on high. DO NOT STIR. Dump into 8″x8″ pyrex dish. Chill, cut, eat.

And when I say DO NOT STIR, I mean it. These work exactly right in my microwave for that amount of time. It’s worth experimenting with 3 or 4 batches to find just the magical amount of time for your own microwave because then you can have delicious caramels every year from now on and forever without any hassle. All the joy of caramels, none of the pain. MERRY CHRISTMAS!