Salted Caramel

Today I am preparing an incredibly delicious and versatile thing - caramel or caramel sauce. It can be added to cream to give it a caramel flavor, used as a filling in cakes or muffins, added to ice cream or drizzled over popcorn, served as a sweet sauce for pancakes, or simply eaten by the spoonful...

The recipe is not difficult, but it has its nuances, and, of course, you need to be extremely careful, hot caramel is a dangerous thing!

Sugar

1 cup

Water

1/4 cup

Butter

1/4 cup

Heavy Cream (30-35%)

1 cup

Sea Salt

1 tsp

To make salted caramel, pour water into a saucepan with a thick bottom (this is important!) and sprinkle sugar on top. Place over medium heat and wait for the mixture to boil, no need to stir. You can gently swirl the saucepan from side to side.

Once the sugar has completely dissolved, use a brush soaked in hot water to remove any sugar crystals from the sides of the pan to prevent syrup crystallization.

Cook the syrup over medium heat until it reaches a rich dark amber color. If you have a kitchen thermometer, the syrup temperature should reach 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit. It is important to cook the syrup well, as undercooked syrup can cause the caramel to crystallize later on.

When the syrup is almost at the desired temperature, you can start warming the cream. Do not boil the cream, it should just be hot so that when added to the hot syrup, it does not cause a strong reaction due to temperature differences. By the way, you can also use a microwave for this step.

Once the syrup reaches the desired temperature, remove it from the heat and add the butter, stirring well until fully dissolved. Add salt and mix well.

Continuously stirring, gradually add the hot cream to the syrup in three additions, stirring intensively each time. When the syrup combines with the cream, it will still react vigorously, bubbling and boiling, so be careful and attentive!

Return the saucepan to the heat and cook the syrup for another 3-4 minutes over medium heat. The temperature of the caramel should reach 106 degrees Fahrenheit.

At first, the caramel will be very liquid. At this stage, you can strain it through a fine sieve to remove any possible sugar crystals, but this is not necessary. As the caramel cools, it will thicken and become denser and more viscous.

If you want a thicker caramel, add less cream or cook the caramel longer.

Pour the salted caramel into a glass container, I used a 10-ounce jar. Let the caramel cool before covering it with a lid. Store the caramel in the refrigerator for about a month.

(5/5)