Reviewed on Nov. 27, 2010 by smokeydijon
These are absolutely delicious! I'd give it 10 stars, if I could. :) I originally got the recipe from a Taste of Home cookie booklet a couple years ago. Everybody loves them. Yes, they do eventually get so they're not tacky to the touch (but what I found is best in order to pack them for giving is to finely grind the rice cereal, and then coat the entire marshmallow in it. Otherwise, even though they won't feel tacky, if two marshmallows touch together, they tend to stick together a bit). It is quite runny to start with, but I found that makes it way easier to coat the marshmallows. To get off the extra caramel, I hold the dipped marshmallow by the tooth pick over the pan with the caramel (but above the caramel), and then quickly roll the toothpick back and forth between my thumb and index finger for a second. The extra caramel flies off (into the pan). It DOES temporarily make them look like a porcupine, with all sorts of needles of caramel sticking out, but that goes away with time. Then I roll them in the cereal, and I no longer get a pool of caramel at the bottom (like I would when I wouldn't get much of the extra caramel off). The times when I did get a pool of caramel at the bottom, I would just fold that over to the shape of the marshamllow (once cooled) and it was fine. Eventually the caramel starts cooling before you're done. I find that makes it way harder to coat. Makes it too thick. So I heat the caramel up briefly again. Another solution would be to put it in a slow cooker while doing it to keep it warm. I tried putting the pan over another pan of hot water, but that didn't work overly great. As a side note, this caramel makes YUMMY turtles (I think I like them even better than the marshmallows, which is saying a lot. For the turtles you need to let it cool completely before using or it will run all over the place). Also, when I'm done with the marshmallows but have extra caramel, I pour it onto buttered wax paper (needs to be buttered, I learned the hard way :). Let it cool and then cut and eat (or cover with chocolate, cut and eat). This is one of my favorite recipes of all time. I think it's the softness (not chewy) of the caramels, along with the cinnamon. I use store bought marshmallows. Imagine how good they'd be if you had the time to make your own marshmallows for it! If you're interested in giving them to people, I found the perfect container. Those little mini muffins or mini cupcates from the grocery store. The plastic ones that have a small hole for each muffin or cupcake. These caramels fit perfectly in there and makes it easy to pack for gift giving. I collect them during the year, and have friends save their containers for me also (as I don't normally buy a lot of that stuff).