This is has been my go-to caramel recipe for years. It’s so quick and easy to make and it is suitable for almost anything. Drizzle it on a slice of apple pie or cake, use it to make a caramel iced latte, add it to your smoothie, eat it with ice-cream, drizzle it over your breakfast granola, or spoon it directly from the jar …it‘s just so indulgent!

I used this caramel sauce recipe to drizzle over this indulgent apple pie recipe and it was insanely good! 🤤

Nothing beats the flavor of homemade caramel sauce. It‘s made with minimal ingredients which you most likely have at home and it requires little effort to create something so rich, velvety in texture and simply amazing in taste. Adding vanilla to the caramel gives you a wonderful aroma and flavor and the salt just balances out the sweetness. 

What I also like about making caramel sauce at home is that you can adjust the flavor of the caramel yourself depending how dark or light you caramelized the sugar. So you can either have a really light caramel flavor or go dark and have a richer more bitter notes of caramel. (Just make sure not to go too dark otherwise you‘ll have a too bitter tasting caramel)

Ingredients you‘ll need to make the caramel:

Granulated white sugar

Butter, cut into cubes

Heavy cream 35%

Vanilla pods/ pure vanilla powder 

Sea salt 

These are the basic ingredients you will need for a caramel. Make sure you use good quality ingredients for this recipe as you want to achieve the best possible flavor. Especially when using so few ingredients. 

. Watch the sugar carefully: this step is very important as the caramelization of the sugar will define the overall flavor of the caramel. Light golden caramelization gives you a sweeter and milder/ less bitter flavor whereas the darker caramelization will give you an intense caramel flavor with more bitter notes. 

. Hot cream: I always bring my cream to a boil with the vanilla and let it rest, keeping it hot until ready to mix into my caramelized sugar. You want to use a hot cream to avoid too much of a temperature change between the sugar and cream which will otherwise result in a lot of splatter and clumping of the sugar. 

With this step you have to be very careful as it can cause burns if not being cautious. 

Add the cream in 2-3 steps whisking after each addition. (Use a long whisk)

. Adding the butter last: I always add my butter last once the caramel has cooled down slightly. Use cold cubed butter. This results in a glossy and smooth caramel.

.  Hand blend the caramel: when I add in the cold, cubed butter I incorporate this with the help of a hand blender. This results in a super smooth and silky caramel. 

.Storing the caramel: you can store the caramel in the fridge for up to 3 weeks in an airtight container or even freeze it for up to 3 months. This caramel has a long shelf life if stored correctly. 

I would recommend storing the caramel in smaller containers/bags so you have an even longer shelf life as you won’t expose the caramel to air every time you open to use it.