Homemade Salted Caramel

Homemade salted caramel is a very interesting filling for desserts. Caramel tarts, trifles, waffle cake, honey cake, donuts, pancakes, even cinnamon rolls can be made with caramel instead of cream cheese frosting, and they will be incredible. And another discovery for me was ice cream with homemade salted caramel. Believe me, it’s worth making it, at least for this very simple but delicious dessert!

For those who think that salted caramel is a “beer snack”: no, it is sweet, and the salty note nicely accentuates this sweetness.

The recipe for salted caramel is not too complicated, but there are a couple of nuances that I will discuss below.

Caramel can have different thicknesses for different purposes. For example, to decorate a cake, it should be denser, while to add to ice cream, coffee, or to pour over cinnamon rolls, it is more convenient to have a thinner caramel.

The thickness of the caramel can be adjusted by the amount of cream. Adding less cream will make the caramel thicker, adding more cream will make it thinner. The amount of cream can vary from 80 to 300g of cream per amount of sugar specified in this recipe. For me, I chose the optimal consistency – 180g of cream.

Ingredients:

225 g sugar
75 g water
180 g whipping cream
50 g butter
1 tsp salt

1. Pour water into a saucepan, add sugar and put on medium (closer to low) heat.

IMPORTANT #1 – do not stir! Do not stir at all! Otherwise, the sugar can crystallize, and then all this will have to be thrown away.

2. Next, wait for the syrup to boil and after a while it will turn a golden caramel color.

IMPORTANT #2 – do not overheat the caramel on the fire, otherwise a strong burnt sugar flavor will appear. However, some people like this, but it is rather an exception.

3. While the syrup is cooking, heat the cream. It should be very hot, almost boiling. I heat it in the microwave on the highest power (800) for about 1 minute.

4. When the syrup is ready (golden and smelling pleasantly of caramel), remove it from the heat and immediately add the hot cream to the syrup in a thin stream, stirring very actively. Be careful, the syrup will start to foam strongly, do not be afraid, it should be so. Stir until the caramel “calms down”.

5. Add salt and butter, mix until smooth.

6. Pour the caramel into the jar while it is still warm, as it thickens quickly when it cools.

That’s it, homemade salted caramel is ready! Store it in the refrigerator for 2 weeks.
Before using caramel, you can heat it up a little to make it a little more liquid.