Ooey gooey salted caramel with it’s perfect balance of sweetness and saltiness. My homemade salted caramel sauce is quick and easy to make, you don’t need corn syrup or a thermometer. It is ready in 15 minutes and a must for anyone’s baking repertoire.
WHAT IS SALTED CARAMEL SAUCE AND WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE?
Salted caramel is a sweet golden thick sauce made by heating sugar into a syrup. Butter and cream are then added for a creamy gooey taste and texture and salt is added at the end to balance the sweetness. Salted caramel tastes like a cross between caramel and toffee, but not as sweet. It’s texture is silky and glossy when at room temperature and hard like toffee when kept in the fridge.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CARAMEL AND SALTED CARAMEL?
The main difference are the ingredients. Caramel is made from sugar and salted caramel is made from sugar, butter, cream and salt. Caramel is sweeter than salted caramel because it is just sugar, whereas salted caramel has salt in it which takes the sweetness down.
WHAT SUGAR IS BEST?
I have used granulated sugar and caster sugar to make my salted caramel with great results. I haven’t tried making it with brown sugar but I assume the flavour will be more intense and bitter.
Watch How To Make Salted Caramel Here
WHAT TO USE SALTED CARAMEL FOR
Salted caramel sauce can be used for so many things here are some of my favourites:
- You can use it to decorate cakes like my naked carrot cake drip cake or to drizzle on top of cakes like I do on my banana loaf cake
- Salted caramel is the star in my salted caramel profiterole trifle and brings all the ingredients together
- I love the marble pattern salted caramel gives to my home made marshmallows and the gooey texture. My homemade marshmallows are super easy to make and you don’t need corn syrup, glucose or a thermometer to make them
- If you love hot chocolate topped with cream then a drizzle of caramel over the top is the perfect addition. You can find my 10 minute 4 ingredient hot chocolate by clicking here, If you prefer coffee with cream on top why not try drizzling some salted caramel to balance out the bitterness of the coffee
- Popcorn, brownies, cheesecakes and biscuits are all great served with a little drizzle of salted caramel. My favourite is dipping my easy melt in your mouth shortbread biscuits into a pot of caramel
I don’t know if you have noticed but salted caramel sauce pairs perfectly with cream. Cream of any sort, as long as it’s not too sweet, it will calm the sweetness of the caramel. The cream acts as a carrier of flavour and also a dilution. What I mean by dilution is, it makes the salted caramel’s flavour less intense.
HOW TO STORE
I store my salted caramel sauce in a heat proof glass jar or pot because:
- The salted caramel is really hot when you pour it out of the pan so the container it is being poured into needs to be heat proof so it doesn’t break or shatter
- Having a heatproof container makes it easier to heat up in the microwave. If you have to decant it into another container you will find it a little hard to take it out because the salted caramel will be solid and your spoon will probably start bending a little (this is from experience lol). If you do find it hard to take out, take your caramel out of the fridge for 30 minutes to come up to room temperature. This will make it easier to spoon out.
DOES SALTED CARAMEL NEED TO BE REFRIDGERATED?
Salted caramel needs to be kept in the fridge because of the butter and cream that is in it. The caramel will solidify in the fridge but if you heat it up in the microwave for a few seconds or in a pan on the stove top it will become runny again so you can pour it.
I do like to eat it straight out of the fridge when it is hard because it tastes just like a caramel/toffee sweet, I would highly recommend it!
Ingredients
- 200 g Sugar
- 100 g Butter
- 140 ml Double cream
- 1 teaspoon Salt
Equipment
- 1 Pan
- 1 Spoon
- 1 Heat proof jar or container
Instructions
- Get all your ingredients out and put them near you
- Add 200g sugar to your pan and on a high heat keep stirring your sugar until it has all melted and turned into a light golden syrup
- When there are no sugar lumps left add 100g butter and stir constantly until it has all melted. Be careful because it may start steaming
- Add 140ml of double cream and leave it to boil for 1 minute
- Then take it off of the heat and add 1 tsp salt and stir it in
- Add your caramel to a heat proof jar or bowl and leave it to cool
- Then enjoy (",)
VIDEO
Nutrition
Do you want some delicious recipes to go with your salted caramel sauce?
How about my salted caramel profiterole trifle click here for the recipe,
Or my banana loaf cake that changes into a banana cheese cake with the addition of salted caramel and cream cheese frosting click here for the recipe.
What about my salted caramel homemade marshmallows, that are corn syrup and glucose free and I show you a little trick so you don’t even need a thermometer click here for the recipe.
If you have some left over caramel why not use it to top your hot chocolate. It is especially delicious on my 4 ingredient hot chocolate, click here for the recipe.
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