Homemade Caramel Sauce Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is caramel sauce made of? ›

Combine brown sugar, butter, and milk in a saucepan and bring ingredients to a boil. Remove thickened mixture from heat before adding (optional) vanilla extract. Let the caramel cool slightly before using. The result is an impossibly rich sauce that is guaranteed to satisfy your sweet tooth.

For those who are uncertain, Caramel Sauce is not the same as Caramel syrup. The syrup is sweeter and thin, the sauce is richer and thick. (The sauce is the one we use to make our signature Caramel Macchiatos.)

Add acid. Acid ingredients (like vinegar or lemon juice) can help prevent re-crystallization which causes caramel to become grainy. Acid physically breaks the bonds between the glucose and fructose molecules that form sucrose and ensure that it stays apart.

Caramel is made by heating sugar (either with a liquid or by itself, more on that below!) in a heavy-bottomed saucepan until it melts and becomes clear. The liquefied sugar is then cooked, without stirring, until it darkens in color, taking on additional flavor notes the longer it remains on the heat.

There are many different kinds of caramel, including soft caramels, hard caramels, and chewy caramels. Soft caramels are made with a high proportion of milk or cream, which gives them a soft, creamy texture. Hard caramels, on the other hand, are made with very little milk or cream, and have a harder, crunchier texture.

The best caramel starts with regular granulated sugar. This refined white sugar is made from sugarcane or sugar beets, and it melts more evenly than unrefined sugars. Some recipes call for brown sugar as a shortcut because its dark color looks like caramel as soon as it melts.

Caramel is, simply, burned sugar. We want to let it melt, darken to an amber color and take on a deep and bittersweet flavor. The best, most flavorful caramel starts with this step. You can caramelize sugar two ways— with the dry method or wet method.

Caramel sauce results either from cooking sugar until it browns or by thinning melted caramel candies. When a recipe calls for melting caramel candies, you can use a homemade caramel sauce to replace the melted caramels.

The temperature of the caramel can rise so rapidly that it is hard to keep it in the desired temperature range, shown above. As a result, the caramel could burn and taste bitter.

Because it contains a ton of sugar. An easy caramel/dulce de leche that students have made for many, many years: bring a pot of water to the boil, lower heat to low simmer. Put in an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk. Let it cook for at least a half hour, probably more.

What are the two methods for making caramel? ›

There are two different techniques for making caramel: wet caramel and dry caramel. The difference is self-explanatory: Wet caramel contains water (which evaporates off during the cooking process), while dry caramel does not. Wet caramel is the most common method for making caramel at home.

Stirring the sugar

If the melting sugar splashes up onto the sides of the pan, it quickly loses its moisture content and forms back into crystals. That can set off a chain reaction that can cause caramel to seize up, ruining the entire batch.

Generally, for 200 grams (1 cup) of sugar, use 58 grams (¼ cup) of water. The amount of water, however, does not need to be precise. You simply need enough to hydrate the sugar. If you use more water, it will just take longer to cook the mixture until you reach caramel stage.

Class I caramel colors, also known as plain caramels, are created by cooking a carbohydrate, typically glucose or sucrose, with acids, bases, or salts – such as citric acid. They generally range in hue from yellow to red-brown and have a slight negative colloidal charge.

The main ingredient in caramel is sugar. However, depending on the recipe you use, you may have to incorporate butter, heavy cream, water, or corn syrup as additional ingredients. High-quality, real caramel is always made with three basic ingredients and those are sugar, heavy cream, and butter.