Bob Jarchow and his helpers Thomas (left) and Logan whip up another batch of stickies.
By Lori Ehde
He makes no claim to culinary greatness, but Luverne’s Bob Jarchow admits he’s mastered one thing at the stove: homemade caramels.
He frets that some turn out too hard, and some too soft, but anyone who tastes the products of his labor assures him he’s got it figured out.
The key, Jarchow said, is bringing the ingredients to the right boiling temperature and using the right equipment.
"You need a good cooking thermometer and a heavy, non-stick kettle," he said.
"Anyone can do it, but they ruin the first five batches before they get a good cooking thermometer."
If experience counts for anything, his little hand-wrapped goodies should be perfect.
He’s been making homemade caramels for 25 years, since he took a Scandinavian cooking class in the Twin Cities.
So far this year, he’s made 12 batches, of roughly 120 individual caramels per batch.
By the time the holiday season is over, he’ll have churned out more than 20 batches, which adds up to 2,400 one-inch squares of buttery, caramelly goodness.
Why so many caramels?
"It didn’t start that way," he said. "It just sort of crept up to that point. I think this year I’ll hit an all-time record."
Any good chef knows the best part of a good recipe is sharing it with others. Jarchow just got carried away with that part.
His caramels have become a regular part of the holiday season for his fans who now look forward to the sweet, buttery morsels.
Jarchow’s recipe is entitled simply "Caramels." It calls for:
2 cups sugar
1/2 cups butter (or one quarter-pound stick)
3/4 cups corn syrup
2 cupswhipping cream
Bring sugar, butter, corn syrup and one cup of whipping cream to a rolling boil. Slowly add the second cup of cream so boiling doesn’t stop.
As the temperature increases, reduce heat and cook to 250 degrees for a very firm caramel, or 245 degrees for a softer caramel. Jarchow prefers the softer version.
"If the caramel gets too hot, when you break it out of the pan, it cracks, and it’s a mess all over," Jarchow said. "There’s an art to it."
At about 248 degrees, he stops the cooking process and pours the mixture into a 12-by-6 –inch buttered pan. The caramel in a pan that size is about three-quarters of an inch deep.
The pan cools overnight, and the next day he turns the pan over on a cutting board with a decisive "whack!" and a perfectly-formed rectangle of soft, sticky caramel awaits the next step.
That’s the point in the process when Jarchow calls in his little helpers, grandsons Logan and Thomas Norman, ages 6 and 4, respectively.
While Jarchow chops the rectangle into even rows and then squares, the little hands busily place them onto precut waxed paper squares, roll them and twist the ends.
Jarchow said his good friend Scott Beers, who often helped with the caramels, was going to invent a cutter and wrapper for the caramel process. "Scotty was an inventive-type guy," he said of Beers, who died last year.
The wrapping process is fun for the boys, but what they really enjoy is getting Grandpa’s "stickies" to their final destinations — friends and family.
"Know why we make stickies?" Thomas asks mischievously. "They put a smile on people’s faces."
He proceeds to illustrate his point with the McDonald’s restaurant jingle, "Everybody come on and put a smile on."
The caramels are presented in decorative holiday tins, some of which have been donated by his caramel fans, and delivered to homes and offices in and around Luverne.
And Thomas is right.
Everyone smiles when Jarchow and his helpers come through the door. … And the smart ones return Jarchow’s tins for refills next Christmas.