This is pretty close to my mother's recipe for carmels (sans the boiled cider.) Her procedure is to bring the corn syrup, sugar and 1 C. cream to a boil, then when it is at soft ball stage, slowly pour in the other C. cream, bring back to soft ball, remove from heat, stir in butter and once again bring to soft ball. I use a big, cast aluminum skillet and mine always turn out well (I make several batches for Christmas each year.) Some hints for presentation: rather than pouring into a pan, use a cookie scoop to make discs and then when cool, roll into tootsie roll shape and wrap. For some discs, I put pecans on the parchment paper and for some, while the discs are still warm, I put chocolate (preferably french truffles) on them. Alternately, for a gift, pour the carmels into a disposable foil pan, put nuts on 1/2 of the pan lengthwise and chocolate chips (or baking M&M's) on 1/2 of the pan cross wise. Thus, providing one pan w/ plain, chocolate only, nuts only and chocolate and nuts.

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