How to Make Caramel

There are two things that come to mind for me when someone mentions caramel. The first is that gooey sticky sauce that drapes over ice cream or flows over a Bundt cake. The second is the dark, almost bitter caramel that you find at the bottom of a flan or ready to shatter on top of a crème brûlée. Caramel is all of those things — and is wonderful in all forms. But if you ever watched The Great British Baking Show and the disaster that is “Caramel Week,” you might be a bit daunted to make this culinary treat at home. Never fear: Simple caramel is actually fairly easy to make at home. You will need to be careful, as melted sugar Here are some tips to help you get started.

Start by making basic caramel

Basic caramel is really just sugar melted and cooked until it reaches an amber color of your choosing. Pale, nearly colorless caramels can create a crisp sugar crust on fruits like strawberries for tanghulu, a fun addition to a dessert platter. Deep, dark caramel is the preferred choice for crème caramel or flan. It is also the basis for caramel sauces — you can’t make one without the other. Making a basic caramel is not as complicated as you may have been led to believe, as long as you follow some simple rules.  

Keep in mind that melted sugar can cause some of the worst kitchen burns, so be sure to take safety precautions. Wear long sleeves if you can. Keep a large bowl of ice water next to the stove, so that if you do get any hot caramel on you, you can immediately dunk your hand or arm in the ice water to mitigate damage. 

You'll want to start with wet caramel, for which you add water to the sugar in the pot. They are more forgiving than dry caramel, which has you heat the sugar on its own. You want a ratio of 2:1 sugar to water for a wet caramel. Put in a heavy-bottomed pan over low heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until it comes to a simmer and the sugar is dissolved. Increase the heat to medium-high and stop stirring, just let it cook until you get the color you desire. You don’t want to stir the sugar as it cooks; stirring at this stage can cause the sugar to seize up into a single unusable blob. Once you get the color you want, remove the pot from the heat.

Then, whip up a simple caramel sauce

Caramel sauce is just basic caramel with cream and butter and vanilla added. Cook a wet caramel of one cup of sugar with half a cup of water as described above, in a large, deep heavy bottomed pot, until it reaches a deep dark color. Remove to pot from the heat and slowly pour in a quarter cup heavy cream while whisking quickly. The caramel will bubble up ferociously, and may get close to overflowing the pan, but whisking it will help keep it from spilling over. Once all of the cream has been incorporated, add four tablespoons unsalted butter cut into half-inch cubes, and whisk until emulsified. Stir in a teaspoon of vanilla extract or paste, and let the sauce cool to room temperature. Store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to two weeks, rewarm to pouring consistency in the microwave or in a pot as needed to pour over cake, ice cream, brownies, or to eat from the jar with a spoon.