Caramel Sauce

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. 

Favorite Finds: Good Pops

Z and I have a routine at the grocery store, and it always includes a walk down the ice cream aisle. It's especially tempting because our local grocery spot has an amazing selection of treats, and always has a great sale going on.

I like to try out new flavors and products, depending on what's on sale. A few weeks ago, I was particularly intrigued by some amazing looking popsicles on sale, mainly because they came in a cute pink hue.

The popsicles, from GoodPops, did not disappoint! They had really authentic flavor, you could tell the ingredients were all natural. The watermelon ones even had watermelon seeds inside!

These are the perfect summertime treat--they were really refreshing and low in calories, which means you won't feel guilty eating them poolside. I tried out the dairy free flavors, but they also had some dairy flavors that looked amazing, like cold brew coffee popsicles and banana cinnamon. 

You can find Goodpops near you here.

Best Blueberry Muffins

There are so many reasons to make these blueberry muffins. So many reasons that you should stop off at the grocery store on your way home from work this Friday to buy buttermilk, blueberries, and whatever else you need. Add some good coffee beans into your shopping cart while you are at it. So many reasons that you should wake up a little bit earlier than you typically do to put these in the oven and surprise your loved ones. Make some coffee with those good coffee beans, and then start making the batter.

These blueberry muffins are packed with berry flavor, unlike most that are just cloyingly sweet. The geniuses at Cook's Illustrated tested this recipe over and over again to make sure it was perfect. If you follow the recipe, they'll come out absolutely stunning. Plus, they don't take very long to make, which means you have absolutely no excuse to not whip them up this weekend.

Bring them to a friend's brunch. Cheer up a sick friend with a basket of blueberry muffins. Or just enjoy them in the bright morning sun. Bonus points if you griddle your muffin halves in some extra butter to create a delicious crust.

Best Blueberry Muffins

from Cook's Illustrated

2 cups fresh blueberries

1 1/8 cups sugar plus 1 teaspoon

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon table salt

2 large eggs

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Adjust oven rack to upper middle position, and heat oven to 425 degrees. Spray standard muffin tin with nonstick spray. 

Bring 1 cup blueberries and 1 teaspoon sugar to simmer in small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, mashing berries with spoon several times and stirring frequently, until berries have broken down and mixture has reduced to 1/4 cup. Transfer to small bowl and cool to room temperature. 

Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Whisk sugar and eggs together into a medium bowl until homogenous, about 45 seconds. Slowly whisk in butter and oil to sugar/egg mixture. Whisk in buttermilk and vanilla as well. 

Slowly fold in liquids and remaining blueberries into dry ingredients with a spatula. Don't overmix! Batter should be lumpy. 

Use ice cream scoop or large spoon to evenly distribute batter to muffin tin. The batter should completely fill the cups. Spoon 1 teaspoon of cooked berry mixture over each muffin. Using a chopstick, toothpick, or skewer, swirl the berry mixture in a figure-eight motion into the batter. 

Bake until muffins are golden and firm, about 17-19 minutes. Rotate the muffin tin halfway through. Let cool in tin for 5 minutes. 

To griddle in butter, cut muffin in half. Place a tablespoon of butter in a pan, and heat over medium heat. When butter starts to foam, add muffin, cut side down. Let cook until golden and crispy. 

Favorite Finds: Yummly

My work week is largely spent working in the field of data analytics. Rarely does food come into play--I'm often talking to e-commerce companies and other start-ups. But then I have those rare and wonderful moments when I get to talk to a growing and awesome food company, like Yummly.

I met part of the Yummly team at a work function, and I immediately went home to check out their site. Yummly is a way to collect and save recipes easily; it's better than bookmarks and more food-focused than Pinterest. I like Yummly because I can find a plethora of inspiration whenever I explore their site.

In particular, they do a great job of highlighting seasonal dishes and recipes recommended just for you!

I have started publishing all of my recipes on Yummly, and you can find the Hilary Stone Soup page here. You'll also find the Yum button on the blog, so you can can add my recipes to your own recipe collection.

Weekend Reading

Hello weekend! This week at work has felt sluggish with my energy dipping around 4pm every day. I'm making it a priority to get outside this weekend. Z and I are going for a Saturday morning hike, and then we are headed over to newly renovated Dolores Park for sunshine and a friend's birthday. Below are a few things that will get you to that 5pm cocktail!

Loving loving loving these sandals.

Tips on storing wine.

A fun ice cream event for those in the Bay Area.

Mark Bittman sampling wild vegetables and plants growing in the Easy Bay.

On the weekend to-do list: make these scones.

The best mail-order ice creams in America.

These are some of the coolest cakes I've ever seen!

So funny, so true.

I loved this couple's story.

Shake Shack, please bring your burgers and chicken sandwiches to SF soon.