Coconut Caramels

    What if I told you that you could make super delicious, somewhat healthy caramels with NO butter and NO cream?!? My sweet sister came to visit me this weekend and she was telling me about some caramels that she bought at GNC for 26.99! They are marketed as a dietary supplement because they have 500 mg of coconut oil in each chew. She loved them, loved the idea of them and wanted to know if we could make them ourselves and save her a whole lotta money. Now after looking up the ingredients for that product, not only are we saving her money we have managed to make them even healthier.

Here is the list of ingredients from the original product in the order listed on their pkg-

Corn Syrup
Sugar
Coconut
Evap. milk
Pineapple
Heavy Cream (cream with carageenan)
Coconut Oil Blend (coconut oil, organic extra virgin coconut oil)
Butter
Mono and Diglycerides
Natural flavor
Sea salt
Soy lecithin

Here is our ingredients list- 

Sugar, white and brown
Coconut milk, canned
Honey
Water
Coconut oil
Vanilla
Sea salt

Doesn't that sound better?  : )

 Here we are getting ready to see if our "concoction" will work-

My beautiful Sis stirring away-







Ta Dah!  The finished product-




     These are DELICIOUS!  And set beautifully. They are dairy, gluten and soy free. These have about 75% less fat and sodium than is in the GNC version. So here is the recipe for you, enjoy and Merry Christmas!

Coconut Caramels 

1/2c. Water
1-1/2c. White Sugar
1/2c. Brown Sugar
1t. Vanilla Extract
1- 14oz can full fat Coconut Milk
1c. Honey
6oz (12T.) Coconut Oil
1/2t. Sea Salt

        Lightly grease a 9x13 pan with coconut oil, set aside. In a 4 qt sauce pan mix together the water, sugars, coconut milk, coconut oil, and honey. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Continue stirring and cooking until it reaches 245 degrees F, or Firm ball stage. Remove from heat, stir in the salt and vanilla, Pour into greased pan. Let set until cooled- at least 2 hours. Turn out onto a cutting board cut into squares and wrap in wax paper.

It just wouldn't be Christmas without....

Cookies (lots and lots of cookies)-

Fudge (Hubby's favorite)-

And Gingerbread (my favorite)-

With the kiddos on break I thought we better make some fun cookies, these Melt-Away Peppermint Wreaths are great, especially if you have little ones who want to help you bake. The recipe is from AR and definitely needs to be doubled. A very yummy cookie, it tastes just like you would assume from the name. And as you can see my girls had a great time helping me roll balls, and snowmen and flowers and stick people. What can I say they ARE girls, it was a little hard to keep them on task but it was fun.






The Layered Mint Chocolate Fudge recipe is also from AR, I didn't change it but am wishing I had. It needs a little change, I didn't have time to check the review for it or I suppose I would have known that. It was a bit dry, and didn't quite fill the pan size it called for, but still pretty tasty, it's chocolate right? ;)

The Gingerbread, ahhhh the gingerbread, it makes things smell like Christmas :) Once again the recipe is from AR Favorite Old Fashioned Gingerbread, I got all 3 of these from my recipe box where they have been saving for some time. Sadly this was not the perfect gingerbread recipe, I have had better. It was pretty good topped with some whip cream but the search for the perfect gingerbread recipe will go on.

So, of all these goodies the cookies were my favorite, which was completely unexpected.