Pecan Praline Scheherazades

These cookies--candies, really--are delicious, nutty caramels.  The only difficulty in making them is getting the caramel at just the right temperature, which is something I'm still working on.  I've made these before several times, and have been diligent at taking them off the stove at just the right temperature.  They were just about perfect, but I wanted them a little softer, so I decided to just wing it.  When I was thinking about this later, it occurred to me that I'd never seen a brand of caramels called Just-Wing-It-Caramels.  There might be a reason for that.

So glossy and lovely.  I let it cook longer than this.

The thing that takes the longest in making these little candies is waiting for the oven to preheat in order to toast the pecans.  After that, things speed along so quickly that you barely have time to glance at the directions again.

Pouring the caramel into the waiting pecans is heavenly.

When I saw how these spread out, I began to have doubts about my take-no-temperature technique.  Sure enough, they didn't harden.

A friend brought me this Oregon salt from a trip to the west coast.  It's perfect to balance the rich sweetness of the caramels.

The candies needed to be scraped off the Silpat and shaped into balls--some were one-bite size and others were two-bite.  I loved the softness and chewiness of these caramels, but it would have been nice if they'd kept their shape instead of pooling into a flat disc.  Still, their unloveliness meant that I couldn't give them away.  What a shame.