Caramel. Never tried making it before. I found a recipe that said Easy! so I decided that was just about my speed. Now, as usual, I’m making due with the equipment I have instead of getting in the car, driving an hour, braving the holiday mob scene at Hellmart and getting a heavy bottom pan. I’m using my old faithful non-stick pot that I use for every darn thing else.
So Batch 1. Cooked the sugar, got it nice and browned…added the butter – oh man did it smell good in there! Lovingly stirred in the cream, dashed it with salt and set it aside to come down from Surface of The Sun temperature. Took a taste out to my taster who was waging the hopeless battle against the neighbors rogue leaves that love our yard so.
“Tastes fine!”.
“Are you sure?” ask I. “Seems a little scorched to me.”
“Well, there is that burned aftertaste….”
Dumped out Batch 1.
Batch 2: lowered the cooking temp by a skosh, cooked the sugar until it was Just Barely Melted and added in the butter. Now this is more like it, I thought – a light buttery brown instead of a mahogany. Added the cream, let it do it’s thing for a minute, took it off….
Voila! Perfect caramel sauce. Now I can recommend this link! Salted Caramel Sauce
I paired this with the Carrot Cake portion of this link: Carrot Cake with Orange Curd (I highly recommend this recipe. Make it as written just once and you’ll use it forever.)
For the frosting, I used my old faithful recipe of 3/4 cup sugar, large block of cream cheese, and 1.5 cups of heavy whipping cream. Frost the bottom layer, drizzle with 1/2 the caramel sauce (once cooled to room temp), repeat with second layer. You can do decorative sides, or leave your contraption naked – either way eats great! I think next time I will try it as a poke style cake.
This recipe satisfies those cravings for sweet, buttery rich…and you get your veggies in too! Enjoy!