If you’re the homemade gift-giving type, here are some nice candy recipes via the Kitchn for coconut ganache bourbon balls, caramel lollipops, and skillet toffee.
Someday, when I have a real kitchen, I will somehow conquer my fear of caramelizing sugar and give those last two recipes a try!
The secret to caramelizing sugar is easy: Lots of butter and stirring constantly. Butter keeps the sugar from sticking while the sugar caramelizes and also adds flavor!
If you are afraid of messing up, I’d go with the skillet toffee recipe and cut it down to 1/4th of what it calls for and use a non-stick, heavy-duty 2-quart saucepan (you can get a really nice one from Target for about $10) – (iron) skillets are for kitchen pros/larger batches. If you use salted butter, which is all I use, skip adding salt. The ingredients list for the toffee recipe is quite flexible and looks WAY easier to do than the lollipops.
If you want to basically have a foolproof method, melt the butter first on really low heat, then add the sugar (and salt) and raise the temperature and start stirring. Stirring constantly is easy right until it starts bubbling – at which point I generally start stirring like my life depends on it 🙂 Turn off the heat as soon as the color is whatever the recipe calls for and it looks right to you.
I realize that last sentence is pretty subjective. The subjective part of cooking is what most people fear getting wrong. But being right in front of the food is the easiest way to avoid failure.
By cutting the recipe by 1/4th, the worst case is that you lose a 1/2 cup of sugar and a stick of butter to the trash. And you can at least say you tried.
You can do it! I know you can!