No thermometer required for this homemade caramel sauce recipe. With just 5 ingredients and 20 minutes you’ll have a golden, sweet, buttery caramel sauce ready to pour over everything.
1cupcaster (superfine) sugar (granulated will work too)
¾cupthickened (heavy) cream, room temp (180ml)
85gunsalted butter(3 oz)
1teaspoonsea salt flakes (or ½ teaspoon fine sea salt)
For best results, always weigh ingredients where a weight is provided
Equipment
A heavy-based stainless steel saucepan.
A silicone spatula and balloon whisk.
A preserving jar/mason jar or a heat proof jug to store it.
Instructions
Rub some vinegar or lemon juice around the inside of a large heavy based stainless steel saucepan and over your silicone spatula, then rinse with water. No need to dry.
Add the water and sugar to the saucepan over very low heat.
Stir to dissolve the sugar, before letting it come to a boil. Make sure all the sugar crystals are dissolved before it boils, remove it from the heat if you must. The slower the better for this step.
Once all the sugar crystals are dissolved, stop stirring. Increase to medium-low heat and let it come to a boil.
Boil for roughly 5 minutes until it's a deep honey colour, gently swirling the pan every so often if it looks like it's colouring unevenly.
Whisk in the cream and increase the heat to medium.
As soon as the cream is mixed in, add the butter and whisk to melt.
Bring it back to a boil for 3 minutes or until you have a nice caramel colour. You'll see lots of big frothy bubbles during this process and it will thicken up. Be careful not to burn it.
Stir in the salt and set aside to cool for 10 minutes before pouring the caramel mixture into a preserving jar. Once cooled to room temperature, seal tightly and keep in the fridge for up to 1 month.
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Notes
Yield: This recipe makes just over 1 cup of caramel sauce.
Take care: Hot caramel is like molten lava - be careful not to let it touch your skin. Stand back, don't peer into the saucepan and wear gloves if desired.
Caramel sauce firms up in the refrigerator. Warm it a little (not to boiling) in the microwave or in a saucepan before using.
Is this salted caramel? While this recipe has salt, mostly for balance but a touch of background saltiness, a classic salted caramel sauce would be just a little saltier than this version. Add up to another ½ teaspoon of sea salt flakes or ¼ teaspoon of fine sea salt to adjust.
If your cream is cold, it may splatter more so room temperature or just slightly warmed in the microwave is best.
You need pure cane sugar for best results. Don't use powdered sugar or brown sugar.
This caramel is not the right consistency to coat caramel apples, though you can certainly use it to dip sliced apples into.
Feel free to add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Not normally in caramel sauce but tastes delicious.
Have you tried this recipe?Don't forget to leave a rating and comment below and let me know how it was! I love hearing from you. Nutrition information is approximate and derived from an online calculator. The brands you use may cause variations.