3 Ingredient Caramel Sauce

this image

This caramel sauce is everything you could dream of in an ooey gooey 3 Ingredient Caramel Sauce and, it being Thursday and all, I thought I’d carry on my Three Ingredient Thursday tradition (I’ve already made my 3 Ingredient Pulled Pork twice… in two weeks!) Making caramel has always been one of those things that has always eluded me (e·lude verb. 1. evade or escape from (a danger, enemy, or pursuer, typically in a skillful or cunning way. Used in a sentence ‘caramel  managed to elude her makers by almost burning their houses down and ruining their spatulas). Clearly, there is a story behind my journey that led me to FINALLY being able to make a successful caramel sauce that I’d like to share with you.

It all started two years ago when I was attempting to make wedding favors for my upcoming wedding…my idea was to make dark chocolate sea salt caramels on a stick and have those be the favors and place cards because that was a candy my husband and I both love…after three or so failed attempts and lots of useless purchasing of lollipop sticks and molds (I still have 150 lollipop sticks, project anyone?) I gave up and we were able to get them made by a local chocolate shop where my husband had gotten me my first box of chocolates from, so it all worked out. (Side story: when we met with our DJ we were telling him how after our meeting we were going to pick up chocolate covered caramels for our wedding, and he said ‘wait…did you get them from Ultimate Confections?’ We said ‘yes’ and he then proceeded to tell us that he managed their kitchen and how, because of the different melting points of chocolate and sugar they had to build special molds so that the lollipop sticks wouldn’t come out. Made the whole experience that much more special, and SEE, it’s not only me that had issues.

Below is a picture of what our favors/place cards ended up looking like. Little shout out to my friend Debbie who is the speediest helper ever, we bagged all the caramels, tied them with ribbon and made the name cards out of Seed Paper from Botanical Paperworks and by the time I had done 1 I turned around and she had half of them done!

Ok, back to my attempting to make caramel … I went scouring the web and followed a recipe I found to the T, only to have my supposed ‘heat resistant’ spatula melt and my smoke detector go off while burning the first batch (the contents of the pan were literally BLACK). Maybe everyone knows this but me? Don’t use plastic when making caramel, only use metal, and don’t use a heavy bottom pan because your caramel will burn the second it starts boiling!

I was so annoyed by this point and my husband heard some not so nice words from the kitchen about my thoughts on making caramel. At one point I’m pretty sure I told him I wanted to write to the author of the recipe I had followed and demand a new spatula, but that isn’t nice, and I calmed down when he told me I should try it again and just develop better instructions so someone else looking for a recipe could find one that would work, because really, that’s one of the reasons I blog-to show and share my experience of making things in the kitchen! So, here is what worked for me in making caramel sauce, successfully! Hope you enjoy!

3 Ingredient Caramel Sauce

3.55 from 11 votes

Print Rate

Prep Time: 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes minutes

Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 1 Cup Sugar
• 4 Tbs Butter
• 1/2 Cup Heavy Cream

Instructions

• In a sauce pan start by melting the sugar over medium heat. This takes about 15 minutes, so be patient. As the sugar melts it will first form little clumps, then bigger clumps until it melts completely. Whisk constantly.
• As soon as all the sugar is melted and the sides start to bubble, add the butter. Whisk constantly to incorporate the butter. The butter will bubble up with the melted sugar. As soon as it the butter is melted and incorporated, slowly whisk in the heavy cream. Whisk a few times until everything is incorporated and then turn heat off.
• Allow to cool in the sauce pan for 10-15 minutes, stirring every once in a while, then pour into mason jar or storage container or serve.
• Store in airtight container in the fridge, reheat in the microwave for 10 seconds to warm up. My sauce was fairly thick after cooling.

Notes

Only use metal whisk or spatula.[br]Add the heavy cream slowly.[br]It helps if you use a non-stick sauce pan (helps for clean up and when whisking).