December 10, 2017–I took a combination of numerous recipes including Alton Brown’s classic caramel sauce to create this jar of delight. Although caramel is one of the easiest things to make it is also one of the easiest things to mess up.
You have to watch it constantly or it would go from a dark brown batch of goodness to a burnt mess that possible ruins one of your favorite pans.
You can of course make it with or without the salt, I used Maldon Sea Salt Flakes; but I am unsure why you would make it without the Bourbon. I used W.L. Weller Special Reserve. I know some may some that’s a waste of an excellent Bourbon but if you like it straight up or in an Old Fashioned image what the tasting notes of honey, butterscotch, and a soft woodiness do to caramel. Yum!!
Bring the water, sugar, corn syrup, and cream of tartar to a temperature of about 230 degrees. Once it reaches 300 reduce the heat and stir.
As you can see the temperature is over 300 degrees and the mixture is starting to brown. DO NOT look away…not even for a second!
Almost there…keep watching.
A perfect caramel color.
Remove from the heat being very careful when adding your heavy cream, salt, vanilla (optional) and bourbon (optional, but not really) because it will boil up!
Allow to cool before adding to a squeeze bottle, jar, or add during the last few churning minutes of your homemade ice cream.
Alton Brown has been known to say that you can put caramel to anything…even a spoon 🙂
