Many of us really like the candy known as Turtles, if we buy it from a quality shop, for it combines three of our favorite foods ... pecans, caramel and chocolate. How can anyone not like that combination? Okay, if you are a termite or herbivore I will understand. Otherwise ... You want to make turtles per this recipe.
This recipe is a modification of one I finally found on the Internet that happened to be superior to the rest of the poor recipes therein. Even this one had significant flaws in candy making fundamentals that I had to correct, but at least the recommended ingredients, or most of them, were proper.
So it is that I decided to make Turtles for the first time. I expected to make further modifications. Maybe ... Because I already knew about and already possessed all of the best ingredients! But one never knows for sure all that might be known about superior procedures, right? Read on ...
Okay (a day later) ... I made them. WOW!!! The only issue was my mistake in assuming that plain waxed paper would be sufficient as a non-stick underlayment on a baking sheet while making the turtles. Not true! They stuck fiercely to waxed paper due to the melted caramel applied earlier. It was an easy fix following that educational experience. Use parchment paper instead of waxed paper, and freeze the caramel and pecan combination for 20 minutes prior to coating the candy with melted chocolate. Thus, they don't stick tightly to the parchment paper and it is easy to pop them off, which I recommend doing whether you are planning to simply coat the tops with melted chocolate or dip the caramel/pecan pieces in melted chocolate to cover them completely.
Later, after the chocolate has set, the turtles won't stick to waxed paper or parchment paper, provided you store them upside down in layers separated by waxed paper or, right side up on parchment paper. The best solution to the sticky caramel issue is to dip the pecan and caramel clusters into melted chocolate so they are coated entirely with chocolate. An alternative is to make the final caramel temperature slightly higher than 240 degrees F to produce a less soft caramel that will have less of a tendency to stick to various surfaces. It is a tradeoff. I recommend that you experiment and decide what you prefer. I prefer to keep the caramel very soft so I stop heating it when the temperature is 240 degrees F.
Ingredients: (makes 24, 2 1/2" diameter large turtles)
8 ounces (two cups) of pecan halves (lightly roasted and lightly dusted with powdered sea salt)
One recipe of homemade caramel per the recipe shown at the bottom of this Turtles recipe, in viscous but runny form, right after cooking in the hot saucepan. Let me tell you, this is a no-brainer. This caramel is superb and puts anything you might find in a supermarket to shame.
16 ounces (or 24 ounces if you want to coat the turtles completely with chocolate) of finely chopped high quality chocolate, barely melted to a temperature at or below 90 degrees F. Use 8 or more ounces of dark chocolate and 8 or more ounces of milk chocolate, or the ratio of your choice. I like either all milk chocolate or a 3:1 ratio of milk chocolate to dark chocolate. Do not use junk like chocolate chips of the type used for making cookies. Buy Lindt® or Ghirardelli® or do what I do, which is to purchase very high couverture grade Belgian chocolate, a brand named Callebaut®, via Amazon®.
1/4 tsp. of powdered sea salt for lightly dusting the lightly roasted pecans (You can make it from plain sea salt using a small high speed blender/mixer like a Magic Bullet®, or by crushing the salt with a mortar and pestle)
Directions:
Roast the pecan halves on a baking sheet in a 300 degrees F oven for ten minutes, stirring and turning the baking sheet around after the first five minutes. Dump the pecan halves onto a wood cutting board and very lightly dust them with powdered sea salt and mix them to distribute the salt evenly. Let the pecans cool to room temperature.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. It is helpful later if the baking sheets will fit into the freezer. It has to do with getting the finished turtles to release from the surface on which they are made if the soft caramel touches/adheres to the surface. That step is not necessary if the turtles are completely coated with chocolate.
Make small piles of pecan halves on the parchment paper sheets, each pile separated by an inch on all sides from other piles, using 4 to 5 pecan halves per pile. Keep the pecan pieces in each pile tightly together to reduce the size of air gaps so the melted caramel mostly stays on the pecans instead of mostly seeping through/around air gaps.
Make the homemade caramel per the recipe at the bottom of this recipe and use it directly in melted but slightly cooled form from the saucepan to cover most of the pecan surface in each pile, about two tablespoons of melted caramel per pile of pecans in total. Do this in two steps to take advantage of the viscosity change of the caramel at different temperatures during cooling.
I use two soup spoons to make this process easy ... one to scoop out melted caramel from the hot saucepan and the other spoon underneath the first to help avoid dripping the caramel from the first spoon onto the parchment paper while getting it over one of the piles of pecans. Try not to get too close to the pecans while dispensing the hot caramel or the motion from releasing the caramel onto the pile will disturb the integrity of the pecan pile ... in other words hold the spoons about four inches above the pecan pile and let the caramel drizzle onto the pecan surfaces of one piece of candy slowly while you move the spoons gently to cover the the middle area of the pecan pile surface, especially in the middle of the pile. Don't put caramel around the outer edges of the pecan pile.
Thus, you add about 1 tablespoon of runny melted caramel (after it has cooled enough to become slightly viscous) to the top of each pecan pile, such that it will attach the pecan halves to each other. Try to add it all too early and the melted caramel will run all over the place. Do it too late and it will be too stiff to process. I learned that doing the pouring in two steps is the best way to avoid overrun of the hot caramel. Ergo, on the first pass drizzle a tablespoon of hot runny caramel onto the middle of the pecans pile ... then by the second pass the caramel has cooled somewhat and thickened somewhat in the saucepan and you can easily dispense the second tablespoon of caramel on top of each piece of candy without it running all over. One way to keep the caramel from becoming too stiff while you are dispensing it is to keep the saucepan warm while you are using the caramel. Putting the hot saucepan on a wood cutting board instead of a granite counter will help keep the caramel warm. In the worst case you might have to gently reheat the remaining caramel in the saucepan to again make it soft enough to process.
Use a two quart microwave-safe plastic bowl, and add the 16 ounces (or 24 ounces) of small pieces of chocolate (8 ounces each or more of dark and milk chocolate or the ratio of your choice) and heat it in the microwave oven to barely melt it, about 45 seconds in the first heating cycle. Then mix/stir the chocolate with a metal spoon (avoid wood spoons to avoid moisture and/or odors from other foods). And why microwave safe plastic? Glass bowls can develop hot spots on the bottom that overheat the chocolate in those areas and cause it to lose temper.
Heat the chocolate next for 15 seconds, and thereafter in 5 second increments, if necessary, stirring after each heating period until the chocolate can finally be stirred smooth. That means some unmelted pieces should be present until the very end of the stirring to avoid having the chocolate lose temper by becoming too hot. Use a quick read or instant read thermometer to check the temperature of the chocolate after each stirring. The point is you can retain the temper of the chocolate if it never gets above 32 degrees C, or 90 degrees F. The point is to take it one step at a time. Be patient. Let the chocolate melt gradually with stirring and a number of 5 second intervals in the microwave oven. Once it has all melted and the temperature never got beyond 90 degrees F you are good to go.
If you are simply coating the tops of the turtles with chocolate then add about 2 tablespoons of melted chocolate on top of each caramel topped pecan cluster by dolloping it evenly over the top and letting it flow evenly down the sides. It is normal for some of the bare pecan surfaces to stick out beyond the layer of chocolate ... that's why this candy looks like a turtle, hence the name. If instead you plan to coat the entire surface of the turtles with chocolate then dip each piece into a container of melted chocolate using two dinner forks, then remove it from the chocolate, letting it drip excess back into the container for a few seconds, then put the coated turtle back at it's place on the parchment paper.
Note: The container I use to melt the chocolate is actually a microwave safe plastic pitcher, so I can literally pour the melted chocolate onto the turtles and don't have to use any spoon until I want to get the last of the chocolate out of the pitcher ... but that works only if you are not completely covering the turtles with chocolate. If you want to coat the turtles entirely with chocolate then use a deep/wide cereal bowl for dispensing the melted chocolate and dip and flip the turtles in the melted chocolate using two dinner forks, then let the excess melted chocolate drip back into the bowl for a few seconds and then transfer each completely coated turtle back to it's place on the parchment paper.
Allow the Turtles to become firm on the parchment covered baking tray in the freezer for no more than 10 minutes before storing or serving them. And remember that any caramel on the bottom of the turtles will stick to parchment paper unless they have been frozen earlier and popped off, which allows you to separate them later from the parchment paper very easily. Once that is done they will not stick to the parchment paper even when they are at room temperature.
Turtles will keep for months in the refrigerator or freezer in an air tight container or up to three weeks in an air tight container stored in a dark, cool (65 degrees F) location. But note that you really do need to have an air tight container to avoid letting food odors or moisture ruin the quality of the turtles.
No matter which type of storage you choose, use an air tight container and form layers of the turtles, separated by pieces of waxed paper or parchment paper.
Enjoy! Oh, my! ... You certainly will enjoy this fine candy!
Homemade Caramel Recipe: (from The Joy of Cooking©)
Ingredients:
1/4 pound of butter (one stick)
1/4 cup of light brown sugar
3/4 cup of white sugar
1/2 cup of light corn syrup
½ cup of heavy cream
1 teaspoon of vanilla
Directions:
Put the butter, sugars and corn syrup into a heavy two quart saucepan.
Heat on low, stirring until the sugar crystals are dissolved.
Use a candy thermometer and continue to heat the mixture on low heat until it reaches a temperature of 240ºF. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the heavy cream.
Return the saucepan to the heat. Stir gently until the mixture again reaches 240º F, or higher to about 245º F only if you want a firmer caramel (I prefer keeping the caramel soft). This may take ten to fifteen minutes.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the vanilla.
Use the caramel in melted form directly from the saucepan for the Turtles as soon as it has cooled barely enough to not be completely runny. Work quickly to avoid having the caramel cool too much and become too thick to process with the soup spoons.