As I’m getting more into baking and candy making, I realized that I want easy and simple to follow recipes that I can create. This caramel sauce is one of the easiest sauce I’ve made so far. However, you have to be patient like I mentioned in my Vietnamese baguette post. I’ve been baking on and off for a few years I’ve noticed how little patience I have. This would mean that I would get the ingredients wrong or read the instructions wrong. This is why I sometimes like quick and easy dessert that I can whip up in a flash.While the result isn’t too bad, it’s not perfect. From now on, I am trying to be instill more patience in myself when I bake and this sauce is a perfect example of patience.
This caramel sauce was never on my radar to make and store in my kitchen but I was scrolling my social media one day and found this video about making caramel sauce and how easy it was to make. It also great that Z loves caramel so I know this sauce will go a long way in our kitchen.
Main ingredients:
- Sugar: the main star of this recipe. Anything sweet would need some type of sugar, all you need is some granulated sugar. I find cooking with sugar can be quite tricky and requires a bit of skill and patience but this recipe is great starting point for people learning how to cook with sugar.
- Whipping cream: you need some fat in this recipe, this is the ingredient that will help to thicken the sugar mixture as well allow it to stay more liquid as it cools down. You will notice that that the sugar mixture is quite thin and if you leave it to cool it will start to crystallize as well.
- Butter: this creates a buttery taste that is so characteristic of caramel sauce and also help to thicken the sauce.
Patience is the key!
When making caramel sauce, you don’t want to stir the sugar prematurely because you can crystallize the sugar. This recipe I’m making requires a bit of waiting around but only requires, sugar, water, heavy or whipping cream, butter. You can choose to add in some sea salt, vanilla or any extract you like. This sauce is perfect condiment in my fridge, it helps to elevate my cooking on a day to day basis. It’s great to drizzle into your morning coffee, a dip for your afternoon snack, drizzle on ice cream to finish a hard day of work or even on dessert like my bread pudding.
Before we get to the recipe, I want to share a few tips
Tip #1: add a bit of water to help sugar melt
Tip #2: Don’t stir! You see it multiple times in this blog post, don’t stir until it starts to change colour, or else you risk crystallizing the sugar. You can see in my photos that I did stir a little earlier than I should so I did have some crystallization around the rim of the pot. Add a bit more water if it does crystallize and wait for the water to evaporate
Tip 3: You can add flavouring like vanilla but I prefer the original taste. If you want salted caramel, add about half teaspoon of sea salt.
That’s all! Enjoy my recipe!
Caramel sauce
Equipment
- 1 whisk
- 1 small sauce pot
- 1 250 ml glass jar
- 1 liquid measuring cup
- food scale
Ingredients
- 100 g Granulated sugar
- 20 mL Water
- 100 ml Whipping/heavy cream
- 30 g Unsalted butter
Instructions
- Pour in sugar and water into a small pot and turn the heat to medium. Do not stir!
- The sugar will start melting and bubbles will start to appear. Be patient, don't stir.
- The sugar will slowly turn light brown. At this point, swirl the pot a bit. It should take about 10 minutes depending on your stove
- Keep cooking the sugar and swirl the pot occasionally until the sugar mixture turns into honey colour.
- Pour a bit of warm whipping cream into the pot while stirring vigorously with a whisk. Be careful it might splatter.
- Add the remaining whipping cream little by little while whisking
- Take the caramel off the heat, add the butter, whisk until it's fully melted.
- Pour into a clean glass jar. Let it cool before putting into the fridge