National Ice Cream Month is almost coming to a close, and I couldn't help but share at least one recipe related to my favorite frozen treat. While this isn't a recipe for ice cream (though you can find some here), this caramel sauce is great on any ice cream, whether it's homemade or store bought! I personally love sundaes, and caramel sauce is a classic ice cream topper.
Bi-Rite Creamery, one of my favorite places in San Francisco for ice cream, released a cookbook a few years ago that shares all of its tips and tricks. Buried in that cookbook, I found this wonderful caramel sauce recipe.
This caramel sauce has amazing texture-it becomes chewy when it hits the cold ice cream. Plus, it's not sickly sweet. Bi-Rite instructs you to make sure the sugar gets a dark golden color, ensuring a really great bitter and robust flavor. This sauce is the bomb dot com.
I particularly like this caramel with coffee and vanilla ice creams, but you could easily use this to top cakes, pies, or brownies. Make it when you have friends coming over for dinner, and you want an easy but impressive dessert--serve store bought ice cream topped with homemade caramel sauce!
I know caramel sounds intimidating, but believe me, this recipe is very straightforward. No candy thermometer required! Just be careful when adding the cream to the burnt sugar--it might bubble violently,but as long as you don't touch it with your hand (the liquid is incredibly hot), then you should be good to go.
Caramel Sauce
from Bi-Rite Creamery
3/4 cup heavy cream, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Set the cream by the stove, so it's easy to access.
Put two tablespoons of sugar in a heavy nonreactive saucepan, and place the pan on medium-high heat. When the sugar is melted around the edges and starts to turn amber in places, stir the mixture gently and add another 2 tablespoons of sugar to the pan.
Continue to add the remaining sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, stirring as needed and allowing most of the sugar to melt before adding more. Watch carefully as the sugar darkens, and stir to help it melt evenly.
When the caramel reaches a dark mahogany color, remove pan from heat and immediately but slowly pour the cream into the pan. Be very careful to avoid splatters, as the mixture will steam and bubble up!
When the bubbling subsides, gently stir to completely blend the cream into the caramel. If there are any lumps of hardened caramel, put the pan over low heat and stir until the caramel is melted.
Stir in the salt and let cool until just warm. Refrigerate leftovers.
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