Salted Butter Caramel Sauce

This is my very favorite Salted Butter Caramel Sauce, and judging by the message I get about it, it’s the favorite of many others as well. The great thing about this sauce is that there are no real tricks or fancy techniques, or thermometers. All you need is a skillet or wide saucepan.

I came up with it while staying in a friend’s house in France one summer. I realized I didn’t have much in the way of kitchen equipment, so I was limited in what I could make. This post raised the ire of some, who thought it wasn’t polite to bring cooking tools when staying with others, but if you’ve tried to dice an onion with a paring knife that less-sharp than a butter knife, or make a cake in an oven that has two settings; On, and Off, you do what you need to do.

I begged off baking a cake or a tart and made a jar of this sauce, which was served with ice cream purchased at a local shop. (Nope, they didn’t have an ice cream freezer either.) But this Salted Butter Caramel Sauce dresses up store-bought ice cream beautifully.

Once I came up with this recipe, when Romain made my ridiculously easy Chocolate Idiot Cake another time, I make add this sauce, to serve alongside and everyone’s plate was wiped clean. It’s the perfect accompaniment to chocolate, too.

it’s a shame that salted butter has been demonized by the baking community for so long. I, too, was probably guilty of that. But I’ve changed my tune and have apologized for it. Salted butter adds a deeper butter flavor to baked goods, like chocolate chip cookies, chocolate sauce, and French sablés (butter cookies). The late Chef Judy Rodgers made excellent puff pastry with salted butter in place of unsalted butter, which was some of the best I’ve ever had.

Gone are the days when salt was added to preserve freshness (thankfully, most of us have refrigeration now) and the best butter I’ve had comes from Brittany, where salted butter is the norm.

In France, we’re fortunate to get beurre demi-sel, and butter with sizable crystals of sea salt in it. There are no hard and fast rules for how much salt is in salted butter, but if you want to use unsalted butter, for every 4 ounces/115g of butter there’s approximately 1/4 teaspoon of salt added. So you can use that as a guideline when you make this Salted Butter Caramel Sauce. I add a bit of flaky sea salt, too, which contrasts beautifully with the rich caramel.