•When melting chocolate, be careful not to overcook or burn. Melt it either in the microwave in 10-second increments, or in a double boiler. (If you don't have a double boiler, use two saucepans, one larger than the other, with enough boiling water in the larger one to just reach the bottom of the smaller one, where the chocolate is, and keep stirring.)

•Soft-ball stage: in candy making, the point at which heating sugar syrups either reach 234 degrees Fahrenheit on a candy thermometer OR when a little bit of the syrup dropped in water makes a soft little candy ball.

•When cooking to the soft-ball stage or any other candy-making temperature, do not let your candy thermometer touch the bottom of the pan or you will get inaccurate readings, and eventually the device will explode, which would be very dangerous.

•Hot sugar may look innocuous, but it will burn skin faster than almost anything else. Don't touch it, and take care to keep children away from it.

•Wooden spoons are preferable to anything else because they don't conduct heat and don't add any off-taste to the candy.

•Keep nuts in the fridge or freezer to maintain their freshness.

•Due to allergies so many people have, make sure that you inform all recipients which confections have nuts, and what kind.

•You can substitute margarine for butter in these recipes, but the fact is, most people agree that butter is better, and the small difference in expense makes a huge difference in taste.

•Finally, for an extra blast of flavor, add vanilla to any recipe that calls for chocolate. Once chocolate has been melted it gets a rough sort of grainy taste, but even a little bit (1/4 tsp.) of vanilla smooths it out. Buy good vanilla (not vanillin), and in quantities you'll be using soon, since it loses its strength over time.