Rolos!

I made some creme fraiche caramels (yes, I used creme fraiche despite David Lebovitz's disclaimer, but I had already purchased the creme fraiche before I realized he said not to use it!) and they were rather oozy and runny like he said, but I reduced the butter to two tablespoons, so I think they were perhaps less runny than what he may have experienced...anyways, I painstakingly wrapped each of the 60 some caramels in saran wrap and they are still very good, but I had WAY too many for just me and my roommate (who would probably only eat a few and I'd end up eating them all...), so I decided to take half of them and dip them in chocolate--homemade rolos!!!

I used my favorite (and cheap) Icelandic chocolate 70% bittersweet. The chocolate must be tempered, f.y.i. Melt half of your chocolate over a double boiler (don't let any water drip in!!) and then pour it over some (less than half the amount you melted, so less than 1/4 of your total chocolate) unmelted "crystallized" chocolate in a separate bowl (the residual heat in your bowl will do your chocolate tempering no good) and stir until smooth. work relatively quickly because your chocolate has now cooled and will solidify in 10 minutes or so. I left 1/4 of the chocolate untouched so I could re-melt and re-temper the chocolate (that chocolate hardens faster than my little hands can cut and roll the caramels into lil' balls and dip), so just to be safe do not melt all your chocolate! If your chocolate does harden and you have melted all of it, if the stuff that's hardened is tempered, just scrape 1/2 of it into another bowl and temper it with that. Anyways, making your own rolos is relatively simple. Make caramels and dip in chocolate-->homemade rolos. And they're pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself, and better tasting too.

Much love,

Patty