Salted Caramel Sauce

So, it's Saturday night and am I out for a night on the town having fun? Nope, I am in my pj's (at 5pm) and sharing this salted caramel sauce with you. Don't worry though, this is my sick idea of fun. I'm going to be using it in a couple of the recipes coming up so I thought I'd get prepared and make it in advance. This stuff is seriously good. Since making it earlier this afternoon, I have found approximately 1,458 things to eat it on. Apple slices, bananas, ice cream, cookies, pretzels whatever, you get the point, it's good on EVERYTHING. You need to make this right now. Go ahead, I'll wait.....

It also makes a great gift and super simple to make. Now I know many of you may be intimidated by making caramel but trust me, there is nothing to it. I usually don't even measure the ingredients but wanted to give you a little more confidence by having a recipe for you to follow. This recipe as is is fairly thick when completely cooled so if you want a thinner sauce, just increase the amount of cream, though keep in mind if you plan on warming it before you use it, it will thin slightly.

Salted Caramel Sauce

Yields enough to fill a 16oz Mason jar

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup water

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Measure out your cream, salt and vanilla and have them ready to go by your stove top. Place sugar and water in a large saucepan over medium high heat, stir just to moisten sugar. Allow to cook untouched until a dark amber color is reached. This took about 8 minutes for me. Now I don't want to scare you but it goes from dark amber to burnt very quickly so as soon as you get to the desired color, remove from heat and immediately begin whisking in your cream in a slow steady stream. This will cause the caramel to bubble up, just continue whisking and add your salt and vanilla extract.  Once combined, that's it, you've got caramel sauce! Transfer to your desired container to cool.

Check back for some yummy recipes using this sauce. (If I don't use it all before then!)