Ingredients:

• 1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
  
• 1 cup granulated sugar
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
  
• 3/4 cup milk
  
• fresh cream as required
  

Instructions:

• Combine sugars, salt, milk, and butter in saucepan and bring to boil, stirring constantly until sugar is dissolved
  
• Cook slowly, keeping crystals washed down from sides of pan
  
• When small amount forms a soft ball in cold water, remove spoon and set aside to cool
  
• Don't move pan until hands can rest comfortably on bottom of pan
  
• Beat until mixture thickens
  
• Add cream and beat until thick enough to spread
  

Notes:

• This was among my mom's hand written recipies.
  
• Mom always spelled and pronounced "caramel" as "karmel".
  
• That "forms a soft ball in cold water" comment does not say so, but MUST mean to drop a small amount of the hot liquid sugar mixture into cold water and see what it does--that is what country folks who couldn't afford a candy thermometer would do to judge candy temperatures in the cooking stage.
  
• That "beat until mixture thickens" comment: I can assure you that when she wrote that line she didn't have an electric mixer, and probably not even a whisk--I suppose she used a wooden spoon.
  
• The step she didn't include (because it was understood by all who knew anything about cooking and living in rural Arkansas in the 1930's) was what kind and how much cream to buy. That's because she didn't buy cream, she went to the "icebox" and skimmed cream off the top of that mornings milkings and used all she needed to get the frosting's constancy "just right" and "thick enough to spread".
  
• Neighbor112752@________.com found this page uncompleted and asked for the recipe via email on November 18, 2001--thanks for asking neighbor.