This is a Four Ingredient Homemade Salted Caramel Sauce Recipe that you can make in Just 10-minutes and then, you can use it in your recipes like Salted Caramel Apple Crisp Bars or Apple Sheet Cake with Salted Caramel Frosting or Salted Caramel Brownies
Do you know the three most tempting words ever known to every sweet lover? It is "salted caramel sauce". Let me add one more word to complete it - Homemade Salted Caramel Sauce.
The moment you add the word Homemade, it becomes more amazing ❤️
Not even chocolate sauce can beat the sheer deliciousness of salted caramel sauce!
This 5-Ingredient Salted Caramel Sauce is sweet and salty with a buttery and sticky consistency. It also goes great with anything you pair.
But honestly, you can just take a spoon and clean this sauce up all on its own. Salted caramel sauce is that good.
And today we are going to teach you how to make it right in your home's kitchen!
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What is Caramel?
Caramel is almost everyone's favourite sweet treat. It is used in cheese cakes, Bread Pudding, Cobbler, Cupcakes, Cakes, and more.
Just name the dessert and there has to be a caramel version of it. But what exactly is caramel?
You might be surprised to know that caramel that tastes so deep and complex is in actuality just melted sugar!
Caramel is made by slowly melting granulated sugar at approximately 350 degrees Fahrenheit (171 Degree Celsius).
This whole heating process breaks down the molecules in granulated sugar into a thick and sticky brown colored liquid, which is called caramel.
This whole process is known as caramelization. You can do quite a few additions to this process to get a specific type of caramel.
For example, if you want to make a caramel sauce, then you'd need to add milk and butter to give it a creamy and saucy texture.
Ingredients needed to make salted caramel sauce
The ingredient list for salted caramel sauce extremely tiny, it is also pretty cheap and easily available at any local grocery store.
You should be able to find everything in the baking aisle!
1. Granulated sugar
The sugar that you will be using to kick off the caramelization process should be specifically granulated sugar. Other sugars like brown sugar will not work. The bigger the grains of sugar are, the better your caramel will be. So try to get a really good quality of granulated sugar for this recipe!
2. Salted butter
As the name of the sauce suggests, it should have a good amount of salt in it. So we suggest you go for the salted butter instead of the unsalted one to make sure that your salted caramel sauce doesn't fall short on the much needed saltiness! Also, extra tip: make sure your butter is
at room temperature and cut into smaller pieces and not one solid frozen block. This will make it easier to integrate into the whole caramelization process.
3. Heavy cream
If you want a really good caramel sauce then you need to go with heavy cream. Don't go for skimmed milk or worse, fatless cream. There really is no room here to be health conscious here as salted caramel sauce is already loaded in sugar. So why not just go all out without any second thoughts?
4. Salt
Yes, we know you are already using salted butter for this sauce. But trust us when we say that it won't be enough. Remember that a caramel is essentially melted sugar and you'll be needing quite a bit of salt to match up to all that sweetness. So don't fuss about adding a few pinches of salt! As an added bonus to flavor, you can use kosher salt or flaky salt instead of regular salt.
5. Pure Vanilla Extract
It's not necessary but highly recommended. Nothing compares to the richness that vanilla provides in your sauce.
see the recipe card for quantities
How to Make Salted Caramel Sauce
Making Salted Caramel Sauce is easy, but it does require a bit of patience on your side.
Caramelization is a slow and arduous process, and you need to be careful when it is finally at that perfect brown color. Just a moment's lapse of attention and you can end up with a bitter or burnt salted caramel sauce. But with our quick and easy steps to making the perfect salted caramel sauce, we'll make sure it never happens!
1. Assemble all your ingredients. Then heat up a medium saucepan that is medium sized. Make sure it has a heavy bottom as you will be heating up sugar slowly on it.
2. Keep your saucepan on low flame and start heating up the granulated sugar. Keep stirring it in between to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom and gets heat evenly. Use a wooden spatula or a silicone spatula to do all the stirring as it will get very hot and you don't want to burn your fingers holding the utensil.
3. Eventually the sugar will start to melt into a thick and sticky light brown colored liquid. This is a good thing as it means the caramelization is happening. Don't let the color get too dark as it'll mean the caramel has burned!
4. Wear your kitchen gloves for safety here for this next step. Once the sugar has melted and browned to an amber -like colour it is time to put in your salted butter. Now be careful as the caramel bubbles up a lot when butter is introduced to it. So make sure you wear gloves in case it splatters a little on your hands.
5. If you see the butter separating then remove the saucepan from the heat and whisk the caramel vigorously so that butter mixes up into it. Once combined, put it back onto heat. Now you can slowly start to pour heavy cream and pure vanilla extract. Keep mixing it with the caramel as you keep slowly adding it.
6. Once all the heavy cream is added you can leave the caramel alone. Just let the caramel come to a boil. It should take one to two minutes for that to happen.
7. Now you can remove the saucepan from the stovetop. Add in the salt and stir the caramel again to mix it well. Your salted caramel sauce is now ready. Just let it cool so that it can get thick. Who doesn't love a thick salted caramel sauce?
How to store Salted Caramel Sauce?
Salted caramel sauce can be a little tricky to store. If you keep it by itself at room temperature then it will last only a day. But with some tips, you can store and preserve your caramel sauce for a long time!
- Refrigerate: Refrigerating Salted Caramel Sauce is the easiest and most effective way to store the sauce. Just keep it in an air-tight container and refrigerate for almost 1-month.
- Freeze: You can Freeze your Salted Caramel Sauce for up to 3-months in the freezer, Make sure you thaw it in the refrigerator overnight and reheat before serving.
- Reheat: To get your salted caramel sauce back to its thick and saucy consistency, first let it thaw at room temperature. Then keep the container in the microwave for a few minutes. And that's it! Your salted caramel sauce is now ready to be used!
More Caramel Desserts to love
Recipe
Salted Caramel Sauce
INGREDIENTS
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 6 tablespoon salted butter cut into small cubes
- ½ cup heavy cream at room temperature
- ½ teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
- 1 teaspoon Salt
INSTRUCTIONS
- In a heavy Duty medium saucepan add granulated sugar over medium heat. Stir constantly with a rubber spatula until sugar melts.
- First you'll see sugar turning into clumps. Then eventually it will melt. Once sugar melts add cubes of butter. Whisk vigorously until sugar combines with butter. In case you notice sugar separating from butter then just take it off the heat and whisk vigorously until sugar combines with butter. This should take 3-5 minutes.
- Slowly pour heavy cream and pure vanilla extract. Whisk continuously until combined. Once you've added your heavy cream allow it to boil for about a minute.
- Finally, remove from heat and stir in salt. Allow it to cool down completely. Enjoy!
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