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!