As shown below, this recipe is simple and good for making soft caramels. I found it in The Joy of Cooking© and I use it when making Caramel Nut Squares at Christmas.

More recently I modified this recipe to make the caramel component of the candy, Turtles. My modification was to use only 1/4 cup of light brown sugar and 3/4 cup of white sugar, all light corn syrup, and a bit more than 1/2 cup of heavy cream. The point is I was looking for a more blond type of caramel. The modifications worked great. If you are using this recipe with that type of end use then ignore the instructions later about pouring the caramel from the saucepan.

Overall, small variations in this recipe will produce different types of caramels, light vs. dark, mild vs. more intense in flavor. I suggest you think about the end use for the caramel and then decide how much of each ingredient to use.

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter

1 cup of light brown sugar

¼ cup of dark corn syrup

¼ cup of light corn syrup

½ cup of heavy cream

1 teaspoon of vanilla

Directions:

Put the butter, sugar and corn syrups into a heavy saucepan.

Heat on low, stirring until the sugar crystals are dissolved.

Use a candy thermometer and continue to heat the mixture on low until it reaches a temperature of 240ºF. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the cream.

Return the saucepan to the heat. Stir gently until mixture again reaches 240º F. This may take ten to fifteen minutes.

Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the vanilla.

If you are making regular caramels, then pour/spoon the caramel from the saucepan while it is hot and easily worked, ergo, quickly.

I suggest using a lightly buttered cookie tray and smoothing the caramel into a pool about 1/4" thick.

Allow it to set for five minutes, and while soft use a pizza cutter or a sharp knife to cut/mark the caramel pool.

After the caramel is cool enough to hold a shape (15 minutes) then finish the cutting and wrap the caramels in waxed paper.

Here is an untested experiment: You might dust the caramels very lightly with powdered sugar and then wrap them in plastic wrap. The idea is the dusting product will keep the caramel from sticking to the plastic wrap.