Simple, yummy, and versatile!
Here’s a simple but YUMMY one: Caramel Sauce. And yep, you can make it a salted caramel. This sauce is great for incorporating into frostings, using on ice cream, stirring into your coffee, drizzling onto cakes or anything else for that matter, dipping fruit in, eating straight with a spoon. Don’t lie. Y’all know you do it.
This caramel is made by the “wet method,” meaning it uses water and sugar, rather than just melting straight sugar into a pan. There is a difference. This one is easier and just tastes better, in my opinion. Fun options in the notes.
Ingredients
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1/2 Cup Warm Water
1 Tablespoon White Corn Syrup
1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter (sliced)
1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
Pinch Salt (to taste)
1/4 Tsp Vanilla Extract (optional)
Directions
Combine sugar, water, and corn syrup in a heavy, straight-sided saucepan. You may GENTLY stir together before you turn the heat on, using care to not get any on the sides of the pot, though you really don’t have to.
Turn the heat on your burner to high and LEAVE IT ALONE. Do not stir it. Don’t even be tempted to move or swirl the pot. When the mixture comes to a healthy, rapid boil, turn your heat down slightly to medium-high and allow the mixture to cook until it turns a golden, but not quite amber color. The darker the caramel, the more bitter it will taste. Some people like it like that. Another thing to note is that when you remove the caramel from the heat, it will continue to cook and get a tad darker. Look at the pic on the note. That’s the perfect shade to not give you a bitter or burned flavor. Just rich caramel.
Once the caramel has reached the color you desire, remove from heat. The caramel will also continue to cook a little when removed from heat. Add the butter. It will begin to sizzle and foam up. Immediately begin stirring with a wooden spoon until all the butter is incorporated and the mixture is calm. Add the cream. It will also sizzle up, but not as much as the butter. Stir in cream until well-incorporated and creamy.
At this point, add your salt. A pinch or so will balance out sweetness for a regular caramel. Just add a pinch at a time to your taste. Vanilla Extract can also be added at this time for a little extra depth of flavor, if desired, but it is optional.
Allow caramel to cool. It will cool more quickly if poured into a glass pyrex (heatproof) container. After cooling, pour into mason jar. Caramel will keep about 2 weeks in the refrigerator and up to 3 months in the freezer.
Notes & Tips
While cooking the caramel, have a cup of water and a barbecue or pastry brush nearby. As the sugar mixture bubbles and boils, the bubbles sometimes pop and splatter onto the sides of the pan, and will fall back into the mixture, causing it to completely crystallize. Not only does the tablespoon of corn syrup help prevent this, gently brushing the inside wall of the pan with the wet brush keeps the crystals at bay. The just dissolve and never fall back into the pan. Any water that makes it back down into the mixture is OK (it normally evaporates before it gets that far). This tip is a must, in my book.
If you want to go for a salted caramel, replace the unsalted butter with salted butter. CAREFULLY taste your mixture at the end, and add your salt pinches at a time until you achieve the level of saltiness you desire.
Something else fun to do is replace a little of the heavy cream (about 2 tablespoons) with some Bailey’s Irish Cream, as well as replace the Vanilla Extract with about 1/2 Teaspoon of Bailey’s at the end. Bailey’s caramel is da bomb.
If you want a thicker caramel right out of the gate, reduce the amount of heavy cream to 1/3 Cup.
Using the caramel: When you take the caramel out of the fridge, it will be much thicker. If you want to drizzle it, let it sit on the counter for a few minutes to take the chill off, then stir it and drizzle away. And yep, you can put it back in the fridge. To thaw frozen caramel, allow it to thaw in the refrigerator, not the countertop.
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