Liquid gold
Sunday October 04th 2009, 9:08 pm
Filed under: Family,Food,Friends,Recipes

“Oh, Mom, I haven’t had caramel sauce in six years!”

Not since her serious dairy allergy had surfaced. About time, then!  Okay, so this is what I did: for normal caramel sauce you mix one cup sugar with a half cup water. Stir on stove till it starts to boil; immediately stop stirring or you risk granules in your sauce.  Some will probably form on the sides of your pan; ignore them.  Watch carefully on medium or lower for, oh, five, maybe ten minutes-ish, depending on your temp and pot thickness, till the syrup starts to change color from clear to beginning to be golden.  If your stove is like mine, it’ll turn slightly on one side first, in which case, pick the pot just slightly up and swish it gently around. (No spoons in there yet!)

It will turn darker fairly quickly, again depending on the temperature, and how dark you let it get determines how intense a flavor you’ll get.  Do *not* let yourself be distracted at all during the turning, or I will have to tell you of a notable burning-pot episode that–well, maybe I won’t.

So then you turn off the stove and–wait, read this whole paragraph first!–pour in 8 oz of heavy cream, and if you use nonfat milk instead I promise not to tell but I guarantee nothing; stir fast with a long wooden spoon while angling your hand away so it’s not right above the hot steam erupting in there. Trust me on that one.

Thickens when cooled. Unless you go all non-fat on us like that.

I did two batches. One with the last of the manufacturing cream. The second, I poured in a 6-and-something-oz container of coconut cream from Whole Foods to find out if both that ingredient and the size it came in would work.

We had our friends Nina of Ann Arbor Shawl fame and her family over for dinner Friday night.   I have to tell you: more of that caramel coconut got devoured on that ice cream than the regular sauce.  It was good stuff.

The best part of it was seeing something much enjoyed but long denied now given back to my daughter. At last.  And it was so easy to do.

(Note re the picture: the sauce isn’t separated, just eaten.)


17 Comments so far
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This sounds like a process that would benefit from my silicon hot mitts. They can tolerate up to 450 degrees, and do not allow hot liquid to pass through to your skin (like quilted hot mitts do). Best of all, when they get dirty you throw them in the dishwasher.

DH and I are both fans of these mitts, and don’t know how we managed without them. They were hard to find at first, but are now commonly available (even WalMart has them).

Comment by Barbara-Kay 10.04.09 @ 11:20 pm

Hmm…you make this sauce sound so easy…might have to give it a go. Cool. Thanks and have a great day! 🙂

Comment by Toni Smoky-Mountains 10.05.09 @ 4:16 am

A grown person who developed a milk allergy? That’s interesting…

Comment by suburbancorrespondent 10.05.09 @ 4:43 am

Coconut milk makes everything better. My favorite curry corn chowder is made with coconut milk.

Comment by Channon 10.05.09 @ 5:38 am

What a scrumptious way to make sweet company feel even sweeter! 😉

Thank you for sharing the recipe and for those helpful tips!

Comment by Suzanne in Mtl 10.05.09 @ 6:03 am

Sounds delicious! Glad to hear you had such a wonderful time with friends & family!

Comment by TripletMom 10.05.09 @ 6:15 am

I wish your blog came with samples!

Comment by LynnM 10.05.09 @ 6:27 am

How about trying soy milk instead of that. . .ugh?
Dad

Comment by Dad 10.05.09 @ 7:14 am

Oh! I never though to use coconut milk instead of cow’s milk.

Thanks for the recipe!

Comment by Liz U 10.05.09 @ 7:40 am

THANK YOU!!!!

And OSCAR will thank you when I surprise him with this one… Need to add coconut cream to the shopping list. We have coconut milk, but he deserves the bestest.

Comment by Diana Troldahl 10.05.09 @ 8:25 am

suburban – it’s not that uncommon. My family has a four generation history of hitting the “milk wall” in their twenties.

Alison – I have to try that! sounds good and Judy is coming home from college for the weekend and it’s Simchat Torah and she will need the energy if she plans on dancing with a Torah again this year! (Funny site, short girl, tall torah)

Comment by afton 10.05.09 @ 8:35 am

Sounds scrumptious! Where did you get that heavy cream?

Other fun:

Two women, Judy and Betty, often shopped at the same store for their respective families. Judy especially liked that store for they often had samples to try. This particular day there were many samples about, and Judy was busy stuffing her mouth. As she started to pick up yet another, Betty shouted, “Judy! Don’t!”
“Why not?” burbled Judy as she stuffed the offering in her mouth.
“It’s soap!”

Comment by Don Meyer 10.05.09 @ 9:45 am

Looks so very delicious!

Comment by Lanafactrix 10.05.09 @ 11:15 am

Mmmm…. Sounds fabulous! Wish we weren’t getting ready to start a new diet with no sugar allowed! 🙂 Maybe soon.

Comment by Serena Rother 10.05.09 @ 1:47 pm

Oh, yum, caramel. I haven’t made caramel sauce in AGES…

Comment by Jocelyn 10.05.09 @ 4:36 pm

Coconut caramel? Sounds better than the original, if you can handle the coconut. (Sorry, Mr. Jeppson. You and Amy can be in the no-coconut crowd. She’s allergic to coconut, not milk.) Not making any for me–I’m trying to lose weight, not gain it.

Comment by Karen L 10.05.09 @ 6:49 pm

Found in the grocery: Chocolate ice cream made w/coconut milk. I promise you, it’s better than the usual stuff.

Comment by Betsy 10.06.09 @ 1:17 am



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