You can make caramel sauce with just sugar and cream–and it will be wonderful. Those two ingredients are all you need to make an excellent topping for ice cream, or for a sauce poured over slices of cake, pie, or profiteroles. However, if you are going to swirl caramel sauce into ice cream (as I will be doing, right here, very soon) you’ll want to have a slightly higher ration of cream to sugar, and (who can complain) some butter! The added richness of the extra cream and butter assures that the caramel sauce will not seize up and become hard and sticky when frozen. I like this buttery caramel sauce so much that I use it for both swirling into and pouring over ice cream–and just about everything else.
Caramel sauce needs to be stored in the refrigerator, and it will become firmer once it is cold. While this sauce stays soft enough that you can easily spoon it out of the jar when cold, it tastes much better if you warm it up. I recommend warming the sauce (still in its jar) in a water bath on top of the stove. You can also warm it in a microwave oven. If you are using it for a sauce, get it quite warm. If you are folding it into ice cream, get it just warm enough to pour.
Let the sugar begin to melt and caramelize without stirring.
Move the unmelted sugar into the caramelized sugar gently with a wooden spoon.
Add the butter.
Stir until smooth.
Add the cream and salt.
Stir until smooth.
Strain into a heatproof jar.
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup cream
- 2 oz (4 tablespoon/1/2 stick) butter, cubed
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
Pour the cream into a small saucepan and warm it over medium heat. Turn the heat off. Warming the cream will help prevent lumps from forming as it is added to the caramelized sugar. It will also help keep the mixture from bubbling up too violently.
Put the sugar into a heavy bottomed saucepan set over medium heat. Do not stir the sugar. Let it gently melt on its own until it is golden brown around the edges. Use a wooden spoon to move the sugar gently to the middle, and then slowly move the unmelted sugar into the caramelized sugar. Do this until most of the sugar is melted and caramelized, being careful to turn the heat down if it starts to get too dark. Once the sugar is mostly caramelized you don’t have to be so careful and you can start stirring the mixture with the wooden spoon until it is free of any sugar crystals or lumps. Remove from the heat.
Add the butter and stir until completely incorporated. Pour a small amount of warm cream into the pan, stirring gently as you pour. Be very careful. The mixture will bubble up in a somewhat alarming way. Add more cream, stirring as you pour. If the bubbling has subsided, you can add the remaining cream. Add the salt. Stir until smooth. If there are some lumps of caramelized sugar left on the bottom of the pan, you can put the pan back on the stove over low heat stirring the sauce until it is lump free. Don’t worry if there are a few lumps that refuse to melt.
Strain the caramel sauce into a heatproof jar and let cool completely before storing in the refrigerator.
The caramel sauce will keep for a month or so in the refrigerator. Reheat gently before serving.
http://madeleineeffect.com/2015/02/caramel-sauce/
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