Tuesday Tasties: Homemade Caramel Sauce(FAIL)

Hey everybody! For those of you still in school, specifically Metro, I hope you're enjoying this week off from school. On this day off, I decided to make homemade caramel. I was shocked when I discovered that it only takes two ingredients: sugar and water. It seems almost too easy, and this time I was right. I burned mine a little :-/ It wasn't visibly burnt, but you could taste it; however, I decided to post it anyway so that I can maybe prevent some of you from making the same mistake I made, which was leaving it on for "just a little longer". Next time, which may very well be tonight, I'll definitely pull it off earlier to avoid that burnt taste. Anyway, let's get started.

Ingredients:

1 cup of sugar
3/4 cup of heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup of water
2 tablespoons of butter
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract(optional)

Step 1: Combine your water and sugar in a medium saucepan and put it on medium heat.

Step 2: This is a very basic process, but also very easy to mess up. All you have to do is swirl the saucepan around to promote even caramelization. DO NOT STIR. I know how bad you want to stir, but DON'T. The mixture will bubble up and eventually begin to change colors. This takes a little while, but be patient. Trust me, it will change colors eventually. The bottom right picture is about the time that it started to change colors as you can see.

Step 3: If you are making your caramel as you read this, now is the time to read the rest of the directions. The rest of the process happens very quickly and without pauses in the middle, so you won't have time to read the directions and then do what it says. Now you wait and watch. The color changing process will happen very quickly. When it gets to the color of the left picture shown below, take it off. If it gets to the color pictured on the right, you've probably burnt your caramel. 

Step 4: Once your caramel reaches the appropriate color, take it off of the heat. and IMMEDIATELY add your heavy whipping cream. You may want to have someone else pour in the cream while you stir. It WILL bubble up as soon as the cream touches the caramel. In fact, it will bubble up almost out of the saucepan and create a foam on top of the mixture, but just continue to stir. Once all of the heavy whipping cream has been added to your caramel, continue to stir until all of the foam is gone and you are left with a beautiful sauce.

Step 5: Add your butter and stir it until it is all melted. At this point you can use your caramel sauce however you like, or you can add in different flavorings. I chose to add vanilla to mine.

And there you have it! If you get it to just the right color, you will have a delicious caramel sauce. You can make caramel apples, put it on cake, or drizzle it over ice cream. Whatever you choose to do with it, just know that the leftovers can be stored for a few weeks in your refrigerator, but I doubt you'll have any left. This recipe makes about 1 1/2 cups of caramel, but it goes a long way. I hope you all enjoyed this recipe and I'll be sure to post an updated version of this when I get it right. I'll see you all later this week. And if you're looking for something to do on these icy days, you should go here and here to see some awesome videos that will make you want to start your own business. You're most likely already doing something as a hobby that can be made into a business, so why not get paid to do something you already like to do? I'll wait ;-) Until next time :-)