Salted Caramel Sauce
Caramel sauce might be one of Hubby’s favorite things ever. He will always choose a caramel treat over a a chocolatey treat. I’ve just recently gotten more comfortable making my own caramel sauce. It actually is so much easier than I thought it was. Having a candy thermometer is a must for making caramel at home. But that’s really all you need. If you haven’t made your own caramel sauce, do it. Trust me, it’s worth the minimal effort required.
I ended up making a triple batch of this salted caramel during the holidays. I ordered some cute jars online and gave them away as gifts to some family members. Hubby also enjoyed a bunch of this caramel sauce heated up over vanilla ice cream.
One Year Ago: Crunchy Nut Encrusted Chicken Tenders
Two Years Ago: BBQ Chicken Pizza Sticks
Salted Caramel Sauce
Salted caramel sauce is easier to make than you could ever imagine. And it makes a great gift!
Yield: 2 cups
Ingredients:
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
1 cup heavy cream
2 Tbsp cold unsalted butter
1 tsp fleur de sel
Directions:
Add water to a 2-qt saucepan. Gently add the sugar to the center of the pot - it will mound, that's fine. Cover the pot and bring to a boil over high heat.
Once boiling, uncover the pot and insert a candy thermometer. Continue cooking until the mixture registers 300 F and is just starting to develop some color, about 15 minutes.
Reduce heat under the pot to medium and cook until the syrup is amber and registers 350 F on the thermometer, about another 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, pour the cream into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. If it simmers before the syrup is ready, just take it off the heat and set aside.
Remove the caramel from the heat and add about 1/4 of the warm cream to the pot. It will bubble furiously so be careful. Once the bubbling subsides, add the remaining cream. When it stops bubbling, whisk gently to incorporate fully. Add the butter and the salt and whisk to combine.
Refrigerate up to 1 month.
Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, as seen on Erin's Food Files
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
How yummy, and the color is so beautiful!
beantownbaker — March 18th, 2013 @ 10:59 am
Yes, I absolutely love the color of this curd!
I love fruit curds. This combination sounds wonderful. I’ve been wanting to make passionfruit curd for a long time. Hopefully I will get to that soon.
beantownbaker — March 18th, 2013 @ 11:00 am
The passionfruit curd is definitely my favorite of all time. It’s just such a unique flavor.
I love lemon curd on a good fruit quickbread. I once made lemon loaf with lemon curd and it was to DIE for. How long to curds typically keep in the fridge?
beantownbaker — March 18th, 2013 @ 3:21 pm
Oohhh… double lemon – sounds delicious. They never stay around very long when I make them, but I think they’d be fine in the fridge for a week or two.
this sounds delicious! I’ve got some key lime curd in my fridge, not sure what I’ll do with the last bit of it…
beantownbaker — March 19th, 2013 @ 12:48 pm
Key lime curd – YUM! Did you juice them yourself? They’re so tiny.
I love the idea of a blackberry lime curd… two of my favorite flavors married into curd! I love meyer lemon curd, too 🙂
beantownbaker — March 19th, 2013 @ 12:47 pm
I still haven’t been able to find meyer lemons at my store. Of course, I haven’t looked too hard either…
This looks delicious! And I love anything that gives me a use for egg yolks, since I use whites so often.
beantownbaker — March 25th, 2013 @ 1:18 pm
I’m the same way. I hoard recipes that take divided eggs. Now that I started making ice cream, I need more that use whites…
If you make a cake or something with the curd in it or on it does it need to be refrigerated?
beantownbaker — April 4th, 2013 @ 7:15 am
I used this curd in a cake: http://www.beantownbaker.com/2013/03/coconut-almond-cake-with-blackberry-lime-curd-filling.html and the leftovers were stored in the fridge.
This looks amazing, but I was wondering how much it made, I have picked enough blackberries to make 3 times this. Xx
beantownbaker — October 23rd, 2013 @ 12:26 am
It made probably 2.5-3 cups of curd. Hope you enjoy it!