Caramels. Soft, buttery, chewy confections of pure delight. I love making them, as much as or more than, eating them!

Making them brings with it memories of my younger days with a woman I admired and loved - a sweet family friend. Aunt Marj was a teacher by trade, long retired by the time I met her. But as is with most teachers, the joy of imparting knowledge was in her blood. She would take me and my friend, Kathy, on road trips throughout Cape Cod, telling us stories about the places we were visiting in entertaining detail - stories one never learned of in history books! 

Aunt Marj made the most delicious homemade caramels. There were three flavors; plain, plain with nuts, and chocolate. They were neatly wrapped in wax paper folded into small squares of pure delight. Soft, but not too soft, and buttery. She made them only at Christmas, and I looked forward each year to getting them with embarrassing enthusiasm.

As the years passed and I got older, I saw that Aunt Marj was getting older too. She would often remark about how much more difficult it was for her to produce the caramels with her bent and arthritic fingers.

I appreciated them all the more.

She took me into the kitchen once while I was visiting. She had just finished making the caramels after having stood at her stove for an hour, stirring the mixture until it reached the perfect temperature, then pouring the liquid gold into the prepared pan. That golden slab of goodness needed time to set, so we retreated to the dining room table. Aunt Marj had a chore for me.

Together we cut perfect wax paper squares of 4 by 4 inches, layering them on top of one another on the table, talking and sharing our lives. Cutting the wax paper squares was the closest I ever came to helping create those masterpieces. She wouldn’t let me wrap them. She wouldn’t divulge the ingredients, and she certainly wouldn’t provide the recipe. She would tell me, "If I give you the recipe, then when you get the caramels at Christmas, it wouldn't be a gift you looked forward to getting, since you could make them and eat them all year long." 

One Christmas upon receipt of the coveted box of caramels was an even more precious gift. Printed with shaky blue ink was the recipe on a 3 x 5 inch index card.  It would be the last Christmas I received a box of homemade caramels from Aunt Marj. 

It was then that I started carrying on the tradition of making caramels at Christmas. As I stand by the stove stirring them, I think of Aunt Marj and like her, I never give the recipe to anyone. I’d like to think that one day my daughter will carry on the Christmas candy making tradition when my fingers are old and arthritic.

Until then, it’s a seasonal hobby that brings me great joy.

How many of you have recipes handed down from generations that bring memories of people and days of old? Are there recipes that you don’t want to share?