Salted Coconut Carmel Sauce
This carmel stays soft even in the fridge. This makes it perfect for using as a dip for fruit or pretzels. If you want to drizzle it, leave it out at room temperature for a while or heat it in some simmering water. Or my personal favorite, put the jar in a bowl of water and microwave for 30 seconds. It is also perfect for recreating your favorite coffee shop drinks that have a carmel drizzle on top. If you want a firmer set carmel, half the amount of coconut milk and you will get a darker harder carmel. I really prefer using coconut milk instead of cream because coconut milk is shelf stable so I pretty much always have some in the pantry. This mean you can whip this up in a pinch to make ice cream extra special, as a special treat with some apple slices or to impress a friend when you have them over for coffee. It also means that you can make this recipe vegan easily if you have some vegan butter. I have not tried omitting the butter all together, but maybe next time I will and I will add an update to the recipe because that would mean this would be a completely shelf stable recipe… we shall see.
Ingredients:
1 cup white sugar
4 tbsp water
1 cup full fall coconut milk
3 tbsp butter (vegan butter works just as well as dairy butter)
1 tsp flaky salt
1 tsp vanilla
Recipe:
Add the Sugar and the water to a sauce pan. Heat on medium heat for 10-15 minutes. Stand by because you do not want the sugar to burn. If your stove runs hot them put the heat on medium low. The water will evaporate and the sugar will start to to carmelize. You will smell 'carmel, not a burning or bitter smell, so if you smell something starting to burn, remove it from the heat and start to stir the mixture to see if you can cool it down and save it but if you burn it, just throw it away and start over.
As the sugar starts to darken, I will start to stir it to encourage everything to cook and dissolve. This is controversial because most people will say leave it undisturbed. In my opinion as a home cook, not a trained chef, it came well even though I was stirring it.
When you see that all the sugar crystals have dissolved and the mixture is a deep carmel color, remove from heat and add the coconut milk. Stir vigorously and continuously until the mixture comes together and ther are no lumps.
Place it back on the heat and add the butter. Stir till the butter is completely mixed. Then add the salt and vanilla. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.
Enjoy!
