Making Turtles-YUM!

Our family started making these yummy chocolate,
Carmel and pecan goodies more than 20 years ago.
Patsy, (Rhonda's mother-in-law) is our official
Carmel maker. After all these years we have come
up with our own system. Patsy makes and stirs the
Carmel, the rest of us dip the Carmel onto the pecans,
lift the Carmel once it has cooled and place it on wax
paper to continue to set up. Once all the batches about
6-8 double batches are complete we start with Rhonda
melting and keeping our bowls full of almond bark,
dip every Carmel and pecan goodies in the nice warm
chocolate and then let them set up. This year we had
all of the kids helping us(even Tucker), (that took a lot
of bribing on my part, he's the only boy).



Me, Patsy and Rhonda on Carmel duty. We
haven't let the kids help with this part yet
because it is so hot.


Rhonda....dip and drop the Carmel onto the pecans.

Here is what they look like, once cooled we

transfer them to wax paper to cool even more.



We let Nevaeh have a small amount of cooled

Carmel in a bowl. (pst, don't tell her mom we

gave her seconds..).She loved it! She has been

learning sign language for the "more" sign ,

and that sign was her favorite sign of the day.

I believe we counted over 1500 turtles this year.

A few years ago we made over 2200 candies.

We have plenty for gifts and then some.

This is only one of the tables of cooling Carmel

and pecan pieces.

The long long process of dipping the candies

in chocolate!


Taylor, Kylie, Bailey, me and Patsy

Tessa, Taylor and Bailey, still at it



Mmmmmmmm!



Here is the recipe if you are interested:

Single batch makes approx 100-125 large candies,

we tend to make them small enough to eat in 1-2 bites.

1 cup no salt real butter
1 1/14 cup brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup light corn syrup

1 14 ox can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon real vanilla

Pecans (chopped)

Melt butter in a 2 quart (heavy) sauce pan. Stir in sugar and salt; bring to boil. Add corn syrup; bring to boil again, then add sweetened condensed milk; Stir constantly til temp. reached 235 degrees(you can vary a few degrees less for softer Carmel or few degrees more for more firm Carmel). Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Remove from heat and let cook til no longer boiling. Once Carmel start to thicken you can start dropping tsp size drops of Carmel onto cookie sheets of pecans. Let cool a few minutes and lift the camel/nut pieces from tray with a fork and place on wax paper to cool and set up. Once Carmel's are cool.(you should be able to pick up piece with out it falling apart). You melt the almond bark and drop candy pieces in the melted chocolate and cover the piece in chocolate then remove and place back on wax paper to set up.