Cream Caramels

Despite the name, this is a fudge rather than a chewy caramel: there is no butter, no corn syrup and no browned sugar. Treated as fudge it works well, and the whole thing hinges on when you start beating.

• Soft ball, in numbersThe cold-water soft-ball stage is 234-240F on a candy thermometer. At 2 cups sugar to 1 cup milk this takes roughly 12-18 minutes at a steady boil, depending on your pan.
• Let it cool before beatingThe instruction to beat immediately off the heat is the one thing worth ignoring. Beating hot syrup gives coarse, gritty crystals; let it drop to about 110F, undisturbed, then beat until it loses its gloss and stiffens. That is what produces the fine grain implied by "creamy."
• Milk or creamWhole milk gives a paler, firmer sweet; heavy cream gives a softer, richer one that may need a few extra degrees to set. Skim milk is a poor substitute here, as the fat is what keeps the texture short rather than brittle.
• ScorchingMilk and sugar catch easily. Use a heavy-bottomed pan wider than it is deep, stir until the sugar dissolves, then leave it alone and wash any crystals from the sides with a wet pastry brush.
• Setting and cuttingPour into a small buttered tin or a shallow tin lined with parchment, deep enough to give a slab you can cut. Score into squares while still warm and cut through once fully set; waiting until it is cold and hard makes it crumble.
• YieldAbout a pound of candy, or roughly two dozen one-inch squares.
• VanillaAdd it off the heat, as the recipe says. A teaspoon of extract is right for this quantity; added earlier the alcohol simply boils off.