I call this one "conquering your culinary fears" (aka I made caramels and didn't die.) You see, I've had this irrational fear of cooked sugar for years now. No idea where it came from, because as a child I boiled my way through my mom's candy cookbook without a second thought. Perhaps I ruined a pan or two at some point in my life, unable to scrape the rock-hard mass out of the (supposedly) non-stick surface. Whatever the reason, I've been scared to attempt any sort of cooked-sugar confection, let alone caramels, for quite some time. But to be honest it really wasn't that hard, and I even made it complicated by adding peach puree to the recipe (disclaimer: you can't even taste the peach). I kept the candy fairly light in a (failed) attempt to keep the peach flavor front-and-center, but if you prefer a darker, more robust caramel flavor you can cook the sugar slightly longer. This will produce a firmer caramel, so you may want to increase the cream as well. The peach is practically

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