Dark, grown-up caramel sauce
Sorry if you weren’t ready for medium rare venison staring you in the face yesterday. I am a champion of caramel, though, making the point that caramel is versatile. Now, back to more traditional caramel–in desserts. Very basic caramel sauce is made with about 2 parts caramelized sugar to 1 part cream. Grow it up a little by adding salt, a little at a time, until it is perfect.
The color at which you decide the caramel is “done” has a direct effect on the resulting sauce. I find that caramelized sugar that is lighter in color than, say, maple syrup, is too light and will result in a fairly bland and overly sweet caramel sauce. The lighter the caramel, the more sweet and less complex the flavor. I stop the caramelization process after the sugar has begun to smoke a little bit. I know it’s ready when it starts to burn my eyes. Of course, this takes some practice, so caramelize a little sugar at a time and experiment with arresting the cooking process when the sugar is anywhere from light honey to mahogany in color. And how to arrest the cooking process? Pour in your cream. Make sure that your pot is much larger than you think you need, that it has a heavy bottom and that you stir with a long-handled heat resistant spoon, because the sugar will hiss and spatter and boil up in an alarming manner when you add the cream.
And by the way, you don’t have to add cream. I’ve made caramel sauces with red wine and even stout. I talked about using stock yesterday, but I’m trying to stick with desserts today. Red wine caramel is a grown-up delight. Make it in the same proportions–2 parts caramelized sugar to 1 part wine. Flavor it with some salt, a splash of vanilla and maybe a little pat of butter. Red wine caramel on poached pears, anyone?
And what about you–any experience with grown-up caramel? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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