This homemade caramel sauce recipe can be made in 15 minutes and flavoured with vanilla bean and flaky sea salt. All you need is sugar, butter, and cream to make a jar of delicious creamy caramel sauce for adding to your cake frostings, desserts, coffee, and more.
Ingredients for this Caramel Sauce Recipe
The key ingredients for caramel sauce are sugar, butter, and cream. I prefer to also add water with sugar to help with crystillization, plus vanilla bean and flaky sea salt for added flavor.
- Sugar cooked at a high temperature, the molecules in sugar break down into compounds. These compounds form into a rich amber color giving notes of butterscotch, nutty and toasty flavors.
- Water is mixed with the sugar to help to dissolve, avoiding burning and ensuring a more even heat.
- Vanilla elevates the flavor of the caramel sauce. Use a scraped vanilla bean pod, vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract.
- Flaky Sea Salt helps to balance the sweetness, even with just a pinch or two. It is purely optional to turn the caramel sauce into salted caramel sauce.
Dark Caramel vs Light Caramel
The longer your sugar cooks the darker in color it will become. Starting with a pale yellow then an amber, and finally turning into a rich amber color. The light/medium amber is most commonly used and creates a slightly sweet flavor perfect for chewy caramel and cookies. Wait just a few seconds until it’s a bit richer in amber color and you can create a bolder bittersweet flavor most commonly used for ice cream.
Sugar darkens very quickly and the almost burnt color will result in a very bitter flavor requiring lots of cream to balance it out. I suggest trying both light and dark caramel to see which one you like best.
Before you start thinking to yourself that caramel sauce is too hard to make at home, just continue reading and I’ll prove its really quite easy. All you need is a little patience and timing. If you mess up in the sugar phase, don’t stress. All you’ve lost is one cup of sugar, so simply try again. Making caramel sauce is really a game of knowing what color you’re going for and removing the sugar from heat before it gets too dark.
Watch Video to see How to Make Caramel Sauce
Tips for Homemade Salted Caramel Sauce:
- Measure all your ingredients and have them laid out next to the stove top for easy access.
- Use the right utensils! A wooden spoon or a heat resistant silicone spatula are preferred for making caramel sauce.
- Choose a medium sauce pan a bit deeper than you think you need. (when it boils and mixes with butter it will rise quite a bit)
- Be patient and keep an eye on the sugar. It can take 8-12 minutes for the sugar to change from clear to a lovely amber.
- Resist the urge to stir the bubbling sugar until you begin to add in the butter.
- Use room temperature butter and cream. This will prevent the caramel sugar from reacting to cold ingredients and seizing.
What if My Caramel Sauce Crystallises?
- Slightly turn up the heat on the stove, to melt down the crystals.
- Add an additional ¼ cup of water into the mix, as the slightly higher heat and water should dissolve the crystals.
- Put a lid on your saucepan. The condensation created from the steam will wash down the crystals on the sides of the pan.
- If the caramel seizes after added butter and cream, place the saucepan back on low heat for about 15-20 minutes. Remove from heat and stir until smooth.
How long will Homemade Salted Caramel Sauce stay fresh in the fridge?
Stored in an airtight container, homemade caramel will remain fresh for up to 1 month. Caramel is thicker when cooled, so heat slightly to create a thinner consistency before serving.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup (79 ml) water
- 5 tablespoon unsalted butter, cut into 1 tablespoon chunks
- 1 cup (240 ml) heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean extract
- 1-2 teaspoons flaky sea salt
Instructions
- Add the sugar and water into a medium saucepan, whisk gently to mix.
- Place the pan on stove over medium heat and cook until the sugar dissolves.
- Mixture will turn clear within a couple minutes.
- Increase heat to medium high and boil until sugar begins to change in color.
- This can be anywhere from 5-8 minutes.
- Watch until sugar changes to the desired shade of amber (lighter for light caramel and medium-dark for dark caramel).
- See tips above.
- Remove from heat immediately.
- Slowly add butter and cream a Tbsp of each at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon. (this will cause an increase in bubbling and spitting, so be careful, keep your face back.)
- Continue until all butter and cream are added and caramel is smooth.
- Pour in vanilla extract and sprinkle in the salt. Add 1-2 Tablespoons of bourbon for a little extra flavor.
- Stir again and let cool to room temperature.
- Transfer caramel to a mason jar and refrigerate.
- Caramel will thicken as it cools.
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