Our Special Recipe for Caramel Sauce

Caramel sauce has to be one of the easiest things to make, and it seriously makes you look like a rock star (specially if your dessert was made by ... eh hem.... someone else ). Just a few ingredients, plus some patience, here we go!

There are two methods to caramel making, dry and wet. We are going to take the dry route for this lovely sauce.

Ingredients: 
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
6 Tablespoons (90g) salted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup (120ml) cream
1 teaspoon salt

Pour the sugar into a saucepan and give it a good shake to even it out. Over medium heat, let the sugar melt. Gently swirl the pan as necessary so the sugar caramelizes evenly, but resist all temptations to stir the sugar. (one stir will ruin it, trust me)

Once the sugar turns to liquid and starts to bubble, continue to simmer on low to medium heat until the sugar turns a deep amber color. Be careful to not let the sugar get too dark and burn, there is no saving burnt sugar.

When your caramelized sugar arrives at the copper penny color, remove from heat and stir in the warmed cream (i’ve used half & half too - still delicious) The mixture will bubble and hiss while you pour and stir. Be careful - it’s hot! And don’t stop stirring until everything is evenly combined.

Return mixture to low heat and keep stirring to make sure all sugar is dissolved and the sauce is smooth and creamy.

Remove from heat and stir in butter, salt and vanilla. Continue stirring until butter is melted and caramel sauce is creamy and smooth.

So there are a few things you can do with this now: 

1. Pour it on top of a cake, into a pie, over ice cream or in a layered dessert. 

2. Let it cool, then dip in an apple slice, a marshmallow or a spoon. Delicious!

3. Pour it into a heat-proof glass jar and keep it in the fridge for up to a few weeks. When you are ready to use it, set the jar in a shallow bowl of hot water to warm it up (careful to not get any water in the caramel) 

We'd love to hear if a caramel sauce makes it onto your Thanksgiving dessert table!

Enjoy!

PS ... The exclusive flavor in November's cupcake subscription boxes are dipped in a caramel similar to this sauce. You can subscribe here, or you can order a single giant cupcake of this exclusive flavor, this month only! Happy Thanksgiving!