Little taste of caramel heaven

I have to begin by professing complete picture plagiarism. These pictures were so luscious that I didn't even want to compete (and I ate and shared this Salted Caramel Cheesecake to fast to even attempt my own photos). One of my favorite food blogs to check is Cream Puffs in Venice. She started a group called the Daring Bakers and once a month they all try out a new recipe and then take pictures and blog about it. Sounds like fun to me! This wasn't actually a Daring Bakers recipe, it was just something she made. The picture on the right is from her blog and the one on the left is from Food and Wine where the recipe came from. If you follow the Food and Wine link it will take you to the recipe. This wasn't hard, and I will readily admit to not only being afraid of cheesecake but of completely burning my first batch of caramel. But at that point I was only 6 Tbls of corn syrup, 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons of sugar, 6 minutes or so and one game of freecell in to the recipe. Yes, I left the caramel on the stove and sat down at the computer to play Freecell (I know, I deserved the mess). The second time around I watched the caramel more closely, a method I would highly recommend, since mine turned amber between about 5 and 6 minutes. One more "recipe note to self" after you have removed the burned pan of caramel/sticky candy to the deck to cool DON'T LET IT HARDEN. This required reheating the blackened disaster on low heat over the stove to remove the hard as rock burned mess from one of my favorite pans. But all's well that's ends well and I had Salted Caramel Cheesecake later that night to show for all my effort and that was worth it!