One little speck of hot syrup splashed over the side of the pot, can burn; it's happened to me a couple of times. I have been burned by a tiny speck while sitting at a countertop in near proximity, watching someone pour hot syrup onto a marble slab; it hurt and caused a blister to form.

I recommend boiling your sugar on the back burner of your stove to avoid spills and burns. Keep a container of ice water handy. If you accidentally spill hot caramel on your hand, immediately plunge it into the ice water to stop the burn.

Don't taste the sugar solution until cooled. It's extremely hot -- I ONCE learned the hard way -- that's all it took.

Use a greased wooden spoon whenever stirring the hot sugar mixture. A metal one gets too hot to handle.

Often time sugar syrup will bubble up and produce a lot of hot steam when adding cream, etc, which can burn you. Hold the pan away from you when doing so. Wear hot mitts that cover as much as your forearm as possible to protect yourself from the steam.

When adding ingredients, such as room temperature butter, toasted nuts and heavy cream (warm slightly) to the hot caramel, stand back from the pot as you will get a burst of steam when you do. Use a clean and dry wooden spoon to stir, not metal. 

Cooking the sugar too fast: While the recipe says "bring to a boil" you shouldn't just turn the burner on High. Instead warm at Low-Medium until all components are dissolved/melted then turn the boiler on Medium-High until boiling begins. Then lower the temperature to about Medium to sustain a rolling boil. One sign that your burner is on too high is your inability to stir the mixture before it scorches a little on the bottom. This brings small brown flakes to the top which get stirred back in. If this happens, toss the burned sugar mixture and start, again.  

Not using a Candy Thermometer the right way. The boiled sugar solution's temperature and sugar saturation are measured with a Candy Thermometer. Know how and when to clip it to the pot: 

Here is how to use a Candy Thermometer:

Candy recipes are not forgiving to recipe changes; candy recipes, as others, are really scientific formulas.  Ingredients can differ by acidity, or texture, moisture, etc., so when exchanging one for another, you run the risk of choosing the wrong one. 

Scraping the sides of the pan: during the boil helps to prevent sugar crystallization on the sides of the saucepan. Scraping the sides during the cooling helps create sugar crystals. Follow the recipe's instructions. 

The pot used needs to be spotless and dry, as well as the spoon used to stir. Any existing sugar crystals or a foreign object in the sugar syrup, such as old dried caramel, cause crystallization. Crystals will form and congregate on a foreign object. 

Prevent crystals from forming by buttering the sides of the saucepan before adding ingredients, if the recipe calls for butter. If the recipe calls for melting the butter first, coat the sides of the pan before adding sugar and other ingredients. When mixture bubbles up, grains of sugar can't cling because of the greasy sides.

Always stir until sugar is dissolved. One sugar crystal can cause whole mixture to be grainy.

Not washing the sides of the pot during cooking, where sugar crystals like to congregate. After the sugar dissolves and approaches boiling, make sure the inside sides of the pot are completely clean. If not, sugar crystals could fall into the batch, crystallize and ruin it. 

Clean Candy Thermometer after each use. Store cleaned thermometer in a cup of warm water while using. Wipe the thermometer clean with a towel every time you dip it in the pot -- be careful, it's hot. If you put it under cold water when hot, it will shatter. Never put the thermometer in the pot when it's wet; it must be clean and dry EVERY TIME. 

Touching the ingredients with a spoon, moving or shaking the pot at the wrong time. Do not touch the pot during cooking, unless the recipe specifies otherwise. Even accidentally bumping into it will jar the mixture; I always place my pot on my stove's back burner to avoid having this happen.

Having a foreign object in the pan, like old, dried caramel or dirt. Crystals will form and congregate on a foreign object. Thoroughly clean AND dry any utensils used to make candy with. 

Also, be sure you're using high quality butter - never margarines, which may contain too much water for candy making. 

Grease molds (other than silicone): Prepare molds first by spraying with non stick cooking spray, wipe out excess spray with paper towel. 

My caramel recipes have you refrigerate the candy so it hardens (no more than 15-30 minutes) or place in the freezer (no more than 5 minutes). The freezer is better because it tends to be drier (no humidity which prevents the candy from becoming sticky). Then, remove from the foil. 

Dipping mixtures (or "covers") come in three classic styles:

Melted Chocolates

Often mixtures of chocolates are used and small amounts of butter (or shortening) is added to replace the missing cocoa butter common in dark chocolates.

 

Commercial Mixtures: Common Quality Names I've used include: Merckens (excellent, reasonable), Wiltons (excellent, expensive), Nestles (excellent, reasonable).

Manufactured candy coatings which melt easily to allow for coatings. Since they lack cocoa butter they aren't "chocolates" but many have a good chocolate taste. The are available in many different flavors (e.g., dark chocolate, milk chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, chocolate-mint, etc.). Commercial coatings range from very inexpensive (half the price of chocolate chips) to very expensive. Quality generally follows the retail price... but not always. The final product tends to have a shiny appearance.

 

Chocolate Chips do not use the same cocoa-butter/palm oil base that commercial mixtures use and shouldn't be substituted as such.

  

Home Made Preparations

Fondant can be used for dipping. Fondants have a multitude of different textures. It is harder to prepare and use as a dip and are much more prone to failure.