Just four ingredients, ten minutes, and no thermometer needed. This luscious but also ridiculously easy homemade salted caramel sauce is perfect for topping ice cream, pies, brownies, cookies, cheesecakes, and pretty much whatever else you can think of!

There is just something about a sweet & salty combination that drives tastebuds crazy – pretzels & chocolate, maple & bacon, milkshakes & fries, even peanut butter & jelly. But I submit that nothing tops salted caramel. It’s amazing stuff.

Now I will admit that I haven’t always had the best of luck with candy-making in the kitchen. It’s just not my strong suit, even with a candy thermometer sometimes. But this recipe is so easy and you don’t even need a fancy thermometer to get it to turn out perfectly. The biggest secret is to stay right by the stove when making this so that you can keep an eye on the sugar so it doesn’t burn. As long as you watch your sugar and stir it frequently, you will see it change from white, to light clumps, until it finally starts to melt into an amber-colored liquid. As soon as the sugar is melted, you stir in the butter and let it melt completely, which will only take a minute or two. Then you slowly add in some heavy cream, let the sauce cook for just one minute more, and stir in some sea salt.

This homemade salted caramel sauce keeps well in the fridge for 2 weeks and is a wonderful gift to give a friend. You could use it to dip apples for a quick treat or drizzle it over toasted almond ice cream and sprinkle it with chopped almonds to have one of the best sundaes ever. And it can be used in lots of different baked goods – you could use it in this easy caramel pecan brownie recipe for the caramel recipe if you don’t have caramel candies on hand. And then there is this salted caramel apple pie recipe that uses a batch of this sauce that you are definitely going to want to try!

1 cup Brown sugar; Packed
1/2 cup Heavy cream
4 tablespoons Butter
1 pinch Sea salt
1 tablespoon Vanilla extract

INSTRUCTIONS

Melt butter in pot, mix in brown sugar, cream and salt. Whisk over medium-low heat for 7 minutes (or more if you doubled the recipe). Remove the pot from the heat, add vanilla and return to cook for another minute or more to thicken. Remove from stove, pour into a jar and store in refrigerator.

source :allrecipes.com