CARA-MALLOW BALLS

M-m-m-m-m, so much like a little ball of Rice Krispies treats, but,...

 with a caramel twist!

Through the years, I'd clip recipes from our farm papers and magazines-- stick 'em in a folder for 'some day', which turned into 'many days'.  By now, many of the papers have 'yellowed'.  Last week, while looking through that same folder, I experienced a memory flashback when I found this recipe for something we'd made in R. S. so, so long ago.  Since I had everything I needed, I took a trip back to the evening when we made them in the 'old (late) meetinghouse' out in the country.  Here...........is............the simple recipe for them:

Yield:  About 55 'treats'

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 of 14 oz. package light caramels  (These days, the bags of caramels are smaller and have less caramels.  I suggest you weigh the caramels to get 14 oz.  In my case, I had to add 8 or 9 caramels to get the weight up to what the packages used to have. ) (I prefer Kraft because they seem easier to unwrap.)  
• 1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 bag (16 oz.) large marshmallows (I did not use the bigger jet-puffed kind).
• Rice Krispies (or, the equivalent in your favorite brand).

DIRECTIONS:

This recipe goes better if there are TWO people--  one to dip the marshmallows in the caramel, and another person to roll in and coat with the crisp rice cereal.  that way, cereal doesn't end up in the container of warmed caramel.

• Unwrap caramels.  (Well, ... to save 'melting time', I lined them up on a cutting board and, using a very, very l-o-n-g  knife,  sliced them in half--  but, that isn't necessary.)
• Melt caramels, butter, condensed milk and vanilla in the top of a double boiler, stirring until all is melted together and smoooooooooth.  (That would work just fine, but... this is how I did it:  In a microwave safe bowl, I first microwaved just the caramels for only 1 minute on high to soften them; then, I added the condensed milk, butter and vanilla.  Microwaved, again-- checking 'progress' after each 30 seconds, stirring, and then declaring it 'done' after all was melted.  Once melted, it took a minute or so to get the 'floating' butter smoothly blended (whisked) INTO the caramel/milk mixture, but, with patience, it all came together just fine.)

While still warm, use a kind of 'pincher/grabber' thing and dip marshmallows into caramel mixture, turn to coat.

• Move coated marshmallow(s) to bowl of Rice Krispies, roll to coat...

Transfer to foil, waxed paper or parchment paper-lined area to cool.  I like them to 'cool' overnight ("overday"?) so that the caramel coating has a chance to firm up.