A sweet and salty chocolate-covered candy with a chewy caramel center folded with crushed cashews. Bear paws are the quick & easy version of making candy using Kraft caramel. No sugar boiling required! Temper the chocolate to perfect and you have a fast and simple candy recipe you can make for the holidays or any special occasion.

Making candy can get messy and sticky quickly, but in this there’s only two components. The caramel cashew mixture and the chocolate. Beware the mess chocolate will bring. I have found limiting a clear bowl for melting and two good spatulas to the chocolate job. Before you starting making the candy, be sure you know how to temper your chocolate and to what temperature you need to cool it too.

Tempering chocolate is an art all in itself as it is the act of properly cooling chocolate enough to recrystallize at room temperature. You want snappy firm chocolate that doesn’t melt when your fingers first touch it. You will need a thermometer to get you to your exact temperature and only a little time to coat each caramel piece. I suggest working with two bowls of melted chocolate, so you can use one while the other one is reheating.

Let’s talk about the bulk of this candy which is the caramel cashew filling. It’s so easy to make that the longest process will probably just be peeling the plastic wrapping off each caramel.

Making caramel typically involves heating sugar to a certain temperature and cooling. It’s not something I would recommend to beginner bakers or cooks because of the preciseness and frankly sugar work is dangerous. This caramel requires you to soften it with only cream. Once it’s melted we’ll flavor it with vanilla extract and some extra salt to bring out the sweetness. Fold in your cashew pieces and drop the mixture into blobs immediately onto a silicone-lined sheet tray. This is your base candy.

The best part of these is the final decoration. The blobs usually make imperfect rounds that once coated in chocolate look animal print-like. Use perfectly whole cashews to press into the chocolate and create the nails of the paw. Three to five cashews are accepted. Let them cool and watch them transform into the cutest candy you’ll ever see.

These are candies I love to bag in cellophane and give away as gifts for the holidays. Chocolate candy will never be overrated, especially when you make it yourself.