Step One: The Making of Caramel

I can now make caramel - woot, woot! lol However, the making of caramel did not help me finish my cooking project the other night like I had hoped. Despite having horrid results the previous night with the making of caramel, and having my husband tell me I can NOT make anymore - EVER- I decided to give it a try again =)

I had found a recipe for caramel/chocolate pecan spiders to make for Halloween and decided it was now time to branch out from my typical choco chunk cookies and occasional brownies to something a little more complex. Needless to say, the first pot of 'caramel' looked and smelled awful. But.......thinking I was being too critical of my cooking, I had my husband come and look at it. He looks at it, looks at me and I ask him 'So, does this look ok?'

It was met with an immediate 'NO' - so the pot got put in the sink with some water to deal with in the morning. The morning comes and I am running late for work and my husband decides to clean dishes. AND he decides to text me that I was not allowed to make caramel anymore lol It was pretty darn awful tho - it was basically a hard black rock of burnt smelly stuff =/

But anywhooo......tried again yesterday and was elated when the caramel actually started to look like caramel. Step One was now completed and I can move on and complete these edible spiders that I refuse to let get the best of me. However, the black licorice for the legs was not the 'string' kind and my husband ended up sitting at the table cutting pieces of black licorice into numerous skinny pieces to appease his adoring wife =)

I managed to get the pecans coated with caramel, the legs stuck on and the chocolate drizzled over the all of that without too much fuss. They sat for a bit and I decided to try one of them. I pick the first one up from the wax paper and set it on a plate and proceeded to pick up the others. However, the rest friggin STUCK to the wax paper *uggh* So there was a thin layer of wax paper on the bottoms of the spiders.

*SIGH*

So, yet again, the spiders proved to be difficult for me to acheive. I figger I will give it one more chance eventually (after my husband forgets what a pain in the butt hardened caramel is to clean out of a pot lol), and if that turns out bad - no more spiders for me thank ya very much!!

I have to say, some recipes are sure misleading - they act like creating a spider out of food is the most simple act ever. I would like to see whomever made the recipe make them - as they must have a secret I dunno of!!