Candy has never been my strong suit.  With the exception of my family’s easy fudge, I tend to stay away from vats of boiling sugar.

So when I say these caramels from Jacques Pepin are amazingly simple to make and almost foolproof, you should take note. Just the thing for a last-minute gift from the kitchen, they require  less than half an hour of active work. Plus you’re likely to have all the ingredients sitting in your pantry and fridge.

They’re so good that you’re liable to find yourself whipping up a batch solely to indulge your sweet tooth.  The recipe does use a small amount of corn syrup to hold together all that glorious butter and sugar, but it’s not the high fructose variety that you find in processed foods.  Besides, no one would ever call this health food.

I found this recipe in “Chez Jacques,” by Jacques Pepin (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2007), the famous TV chef’s memoir with recipes and fabulous photographs.  It’s one of my favorite books and the caramels  are winners.

All I’ve really changed is the temperature recommended for the first boiling of water sugar and corn syrup.  Pepin call for cooking the syrup to 320 degrees, which must be a typo.  My sugar burned long before that.   Instead, I recommend you start watching the syrup carefully at 270 degrees, remembering that it will darken even more after you add the butter and cream and cook it longer.

The only equipment you’ll need is a heavy saucepan with lid, a candy thermometer and a small loaf pan to form the caramels.

One note of caution:  Be sure your candy thermometer is accurate before you begin. Everything hinges on cooking the caramel syrup to precisely the right temperature.  Five degrees one way or another and your candy will either be too hard or too soft.  That isn’t really a disaster — I’ll share some fixes — but it is annoying and discouraging.

Some people can make candy by just eyeballing the syrup as it turns from crystal clear to a shimmering gold and testing for the soft or hard ball stages by dropping some of the boiling syrup into cold water.  But I’d rather rely on the word of a trusted thermometer.

To check yours for accuracy, insert the thermometer in a pan of boiling water.  It should register 212 degrees.  If not, note the difference and adjust the recipe temperatures accordingly.

I made two batches of overcooked caramel this week before I realized my thermometer was off by 10 degrees.  It tasted great but was too hard to cut, much less eat.  So I melted each batch of caramel back down over low heat, stirring minimally with a chopstick to avoid splashing against the sides of the pan and poured the boiling syrup out over a cookies sheet lined with silicon mat to make toffee.  After it cooled a little, I sprinkled a cup of chopped bittersweet chocolate over the top, spread the chocolate out as it melted and showered it with chopped nuts.  It was delicious.

Pepin likes his caramels soft and chewy.  I do, too.  If you miss the mark, though, your caramel will never harden and be too soft to cut.  Put it back in the saucepan, slowly bring it back to a boil and cook it to the proper temperature.  It will set nicely the second time.

The stages of making caramel, from combining butter and sugar to cutting and wrapping.

When I was a child, I was perfectly happy with Cracker Jacks.  Now that I’ve tasted some of the finer things in life, I have higher standards. But I still get a kick out of caramel corn.

A bag of Moose Munch — a posh version of the childhood treat, embellished with cashews, almonds and dark chocolate — finds its way into our basket whenever we shop at the Harry and David’s outlet. It’s an extravagance, though, at about $8 for a small bag, and there’s usually only a few crumbs left by the time we get home.  So this year I decided I would make my own for the holidays.

Prepared with freshly popped corn and homemade caramel, this version will give you a whole new perspective on caramel corn.  It’s crunchy, sweet,  a little bit salty, and downright fun to eat.   It’s also inexpensive to make and a great gift.  I’ve been taking it to parties and even skeptics are soon happily munching away.

Replicating a commercial recipe is never easy.  It took three tries to come up with a version close enough to the original to make me happy.  I needed a light caramel that lets the flavor of butter shine through. But my first two tries, using  brown sugar both times, were just too dark and heavy.  When I switched to white sugar, everything clicked.

This version may even be better than the original.  The ingredients are all high quality and there’s only enough corn syrup to prevent the sugar in the caramel from crystallizing.

I realize making candy can be daunting.  There’s usually all that fussing with the candy thermometer, which never seems to be accurate.  If you don’t cook it long enough, it won’t set.  Yet if it stays on the heat a minute too long it burns.

Don’t worry.  You can use a thermometer, if you want, to make the caramel, but it isn’t essential.  Watch the time and the changing color of the sugar closely and  you’ll be fine.  Just be sure to wear long sleeves and heavy oven mitts when you pour the syrup over the popcorn.  Boiling sugar can leave nasty burns if you’re not careful.

Pop the corn any way you like.  I’m attached to my old air popper but the microwave works just fine, although you’ll have to work in batches.  (Place about 3 tablespoons of corn kernels in a brown paper bag, say a large lunch bag, fold the top over a couple of times and cook on high until the kernels stop popping — about 2 minutes. Don’t use commercial microwave popcorn, which introduces off flavors.)   Or do it the old fashioned way and heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a heavy 3-quart pan over moderate heat, add the kernels, cover the pan, and shake until the corn stops popping.

The secret to the great crisp texture of this caramel corn is baking it in a low oven for an hour once you’ve mixed the syrup with the popcorn and nuts. After it has cooled thoroughly, dip some of the clusters in melted chocolate.  Good chocolate chips work well.  I use Ghirardelli’s 60 percent cacao bittersweet chocolate chips.  If you want to splurge, try chopping up a couple of bars of premium dark chocolate instead.

There’s plenty of room for creativity here.  I like cashews and almonds, but macadamias and pecans also are great and salted peanuts are classic. If you don’t care for really dark chocolate, use semi-sweet or milk chocolate, although the latter may be a little soft for the job.

When you’re done, you’ll have about four quarts of candy.   It looks like a lot, but believe me, it won’t last long.

Caramel corn isn’t just for kids anymore.

Even in the middle of recession, February means chocolate. We all need our little indulgences now more than ever. Still, that doesn’t mean many of us can afford to pay $30 a pound or more for the temptations of an exclusive chocolate boutique.

What’s a cash-strapped chocolate connoisseur to do? Why, make her own, of course.

Despite what you may think, it’s not really that hard and the only specialized equipment required is a good instant-read thermometer. You probably already have one in your gadget drawer.

We’re not talking fancy molded candy here, but rustic chocolate bark in flavors limited only by your imagination. Broken into irregular shards and simply packed in an attractive box, it’s a gift fit for the most pampered Valentine. Or you could hoard it for yourself. Who’s to know?

I’ve made indulgent fudge and soft truffles rolled in cocoa many times, but I never considered making anything that called for tempered chocolate until I took a class with Anni Golding, chef and owner of Gateau et Ganache in Palo Alto, last spring. Tempering is the heating and cooling process essential to making glossy, brittle chocolate that gives at the bite with a satisfying snap. Chocolate that’s merely been melted loses its structure and the cocoa butter separates out, leaving streaks of the unappetizing gray color chocolatiers call “bloom.”

I’d always thought of tempering as a mysterious, daunting affair requiring double boilers, marble slabs, paddles and perfect timing. Golding, though, introduced the class to the seed method of tempering, which takes a little patience and care but no special expertise. Equipped with a chunk of good chocolate, a serrated knife, a microwave, a spoon and a thermometer, anyone can turn out beautiful chocolate for molding into bonbons, dipping strawberries — or spreading over nuts and dried fruit for delectable bark.

In recent weeks, I’ve been playing with bark in different flavors. My favorite was dried cherries with toasted hazelnuts but the chopped ginger and salted macadamia nuts version was exceptionally good, too. The subtleties of Marcona almonds, on the other hand, were lost in the dark chocolate. Toasted regular almonds would work just as well at a far lower price.

The pleasant surprise was that Trader Joe’s Bittersweet Pound Plus — $3.49 for 17.5 ounces — was quite good. Valrhona and Scharffen Berger are better, it’s true, but they also cost as much as five times more. All the nuts and dried fruit came from Trader Joe’s at bargain prices, too. For each pound of chocolate, you’ll need a total of about 1 cup of nuts or fruit in any combination you like. Be sure to toast the nuts lightly to bring out their flavor. Fruit should be cut into bite-sized pieces.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to making your own:

Assemble your ingredients and equipment. You’ll need:
About 1 pound chocolate (I prefer dark)
1 cup of nuts and/or fruit in any combination you like
Serrated knife
Microwave-safe bowl
Instant-read thermometer
Spoon or spatula
Baking sheet lined with waxed paper

Cut off a chunk of chocolate equal to about 1/4 of your block and set aside. This will be the “seed” that you need to temper the chocolate and realign its crystalline structure after melting.

Chop the remaining chocolate finely. A serrated knife makes this task easier.

Place chopped chocolate in microwave-safe bowl. It’s important that the bowl be perfectly clean and completely dry. Even the smallest amount of liquid will make the chocolate seize up as it’s melting and turn into an impossible to salvage clump.

Put the bowl into microwave and heat at 50 percent power in 30-second increments, removing bowl from oven and stirring the chocolate each time. Excess heat is chocolate’s nemesis so be careful to bring its heat up to the melting point gradually.

When the chocolate starts to liquify, monitor its temperature at each interval. You’ll be ready to begin tempering when it reaches the correct melting temperature. Golding says that’s 120 degrees for dark chocolate and 115 degrees for both milk and white chocolate.

As soon as the melted chocolate reaches its appropriate temperature, place the reserved block of chocolate, or seed, into the bowl and begin to stir with your spoon or spatula. Your goal is to reduce the temperature while keeping the chocolate moving at a moderate speed. It’s critical to developing the proper crystalline structure in the finished chocolate and could take up to 15 minutes depending on the amount of chocolate in the bowl and the ambient temperature of the room. Continue to monitor the temperature of the chocolate as you stir.

When the chocolate mass cools to 88-90 degrees for dark chocolate — 86-88 degrees for milk chocolate, 85 degrees for white — the chocolate is ready to use. (For even better results, Golding notes you should take the temperature down to 84 degrees for dark chocolate and 80 degrees for white, then bring the temperature back up to the above temperatures with a little bit of melted chocolate you’ve kept warm on the side. This is the professional approach, but I get shiny, stable finished chocolate even though I skip this extra step.) If your seed hasn’t melted completely by the time you reach the final temperature, remove any remaining chunks and save for future chocolate tempering projects.

To make the bark, scatter the nuts and fruit you’ve selected in a large rectangle on the waxed paper-lined baking sheet. Pour the chocolate over them in an even layer about 1/4-inch thick, using a spatula if necessary to smooth it out. Let cool for an hour or more, until the bark easily peels off the paper and snaps when bent. Then break or cut into shards and store in an airtight container in a cool location.

For an attractive presentation, I like to hold back a handful of nuts from the filling, chop them coarsely and sprinkle over top of the chocolate while it’s still warm.