Knowing how to make homemade caramel is a great skill to have in your toolkit. Caramel is essential to so many delicious confections, and this recipe is easy to follow, rich and full of flavor!
What is Caramel?
Caramel is what happens when we toast sugar, taking it from white granules to a dark amber liquid that has a rich, sweet, and nutty flavor profile. We add butter, heavy cream and salt to round out the flavor and give us beloved homemade caramel!
This homemade caramel sauce can be used to top ice cream, fill cakes, dip apples, or just enjoy by itself! Making caramel can be a tricky business, but this post should help you master the skill once and for all! Below you will find tips, tricks and best practices to master the art of the homemade caramel–trust me, after trying this recipe you’ll never buy caramel at the store again!
How to make Homemade Caramel:
I feel like I haven’t emphasized enough just how good this caramel is–it’s toasty, nutty, perfectly salted not to mention creamy and smooth, like friends, I’m obsessed! My recipe doesn’t require that you use any thermometers or special tools, just your eyes and your heart…I mean mainly your eyes.
Check out this video tutorial:
Step 1: Add the sugar and water and give the two a slight mix to evenly distribute the water. Then remove your spatula and RESIST THE URGE TO STIR! The beauty of homemade caramel is that you don’t really have to do too much work–you just have to know what you’re looking for!
Step 2: The sugar water mixture will begin to bubble fiercely. Remember not to stir, swirling the pan a bit is okay to help evenly distribute the heat. After a few minutes you will start to see some color. It will turn slightly yellow, then light brown and then a deep amber color. Depending on how you prefer your caramel you can pull it off the heat when it is lighter or darker. Just beware that the sugar can burn in an instant! Once it starts to deepen in color you have seconds before it burns!
Step 3: Remove from the heat once you reach your desired color, immediately add room temperature unsalted butter and whisk until well combined. The mixture will bubble violently–this is normal, and kind of fun!
Pro tip: be sure to use the best quality butter you can, it will make a world of a difference in the final flavor of the caramel!
Step 4: Add heavy cream and salt and mix again until combined. Allow to cool and then use as you prefer!
Additional Tips
I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to keep an eye on the homemade caramel as you are making it. This isn’t a confection that you can make while you do other things. I recommend setting out all of the ingredients before starting so that once you start, everything is already measured out!
My recipe uses ¾ tsp of salt which, in my opinion, creates a really well balanced caramel. If you want to make a salted caramel, try adding more salt to taste, ¼ tsp at a time!
How should I use my Homemade Caramel?
The following is a list of ways you can use your homemade caramel, but don’t think that this list is exhaustive! Shoot me a message and let me know how you like to use your caramel sauce at home!
- On top of ice cream–creamy vanilla sounds great!
- Inside of a cake
- Mixed in with buttercream to make a caramel buttercream
- Caramel Apples
- On top of a cake, caramel drips
- Caramel Apple Pie
- Millionaire’s Shortbread
- BY THE SPOONFUL!
Happy Caramelly Baking!
Can baking be therapeutic?
I often talk about baking being a therapeutic hobby but I’d like to share more about why I feel that way as well as how it can become a relaxing hobby for you!
When I bake, it’s my creative time. I may put on my favorite nostalgic movie or tv show in the background, or a Spotify playlist titled “French café” and leave my troubles behind.
Sometimes I pour myself a glass of wine and light a candle. Then, with the mood set, the mixing of batter, kneading of dough and smoothing of icing is my only care in the world.
When I say baking is therapeutic, sometimes people respond saying “not for me it isn’t!” I completely understand why someone might feel that way. There have been plenty of times where I spend hours on something only for it to fail or something breaks that shouldn’t or I forget to clean as I go and am left with a disastrous kitchen to clean.
So I should in reality, have a caveat to my “baking as therapy” claims…
Baking is therapy when you curate the experience to be relaxing.
How do you curate that relaxing experience for yourself, you ask?
How to make baking therapeutic…
- Prepare your mind–know that it’s okay if the cake doesn’t rise, or the butter wasn’t chilled enough. Shift your mindset from seeing your failures as mistakes to seeing them as opportunities for learning.
- Prepare your space–I cannot and will not bake on top of a messy kitchen. If I were to do this I would be starting from a place of stress! Take an extra 10 minutes to clean any dishes in the sink and wipe down the counters, this small effort will pay you back greatly in brain space and clarity.
- Clean as you go! I’ll tell you the one way to make baking stressful and tiresome, is to not clean as you go! After I use each ingredient that I no longer need, I put it away.
After each major step in the process, I wipe down the counters and put dishes that are no longer needed in the sink. If there is chill time or baking time I don’t sit, I do the cleaning then. Make this shift and you’ll really notice the difference!
By the way, this last tip really helped me when I was on The Great American Baking Show–and the crew that cleaned up behind us made a point to tell me that my workspace was always so clean they didn’t have much to do!
I would reply by saying “it’s how I stay sane in this tent!”
Additional suggestions:
*Maybe try printing off the recipe instead of looking at it on your phone, tablet or laptop and use this time to unplug from technology for a few hours
**Invite friends or family over to share your creation with you. Time spent with loved ones over food is a universally special experience
And that’s how I discovered baking for my mental health. If you try any of these suggestions, let me know how it went for you! I’m really invested in spreading this message to others in hopes that baking will enhance your lives more than it already does!
Homemade Caramel
Ingredients
For the Homemade Caramel
- 1 1/2 cups (300g) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (60ml) water
- 6 Tbsp (85g) unsalted butter room temperature
- 1/2 cup (120ml) heavy cream room temperature
- 3/4 tsp salt
Instructions
For the Homemade Caramel
- Prepare all of your ingredients before starting the process of making the caramel.
- To a saucepan add 1 1/2 cups (300g) of granulated sugar and 1/4 cup (60ml) of water. Give the mix a very slight stir just to evenly distribute the water. Then remove the spatula and turn the burner to medium/high heat.
- It is important not to stir the sugar water mixture while it toasts. If you would like to make sure the heat is distributing evenly, swirl the pan slightly from time to time.
- The mixture will bubble fiercely and turn light yellow, then light brown and then a deep amber. Pull the sugar off of the heat at your preferred color keeping in mind that the deeper the color, the bolder the flavor!
- Once you've pulled the sugar off of the heat, add 6 Tbsp (85g) of unsalted butter at room temperature to the saucepan. Whisk vigorously until the butter fully melts.
- Add in 1/2 cup (120ml) of heavy cream at room temperature and whisk again until combined.
- Add in 3/4 tsp of salt and mix! That's it-homemade caramel complete!
- Leave the caramel to cool for 10-15 minutes and then use as desired!
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