Caramel Sauce

 
I don't have time to go back and reread all my recipe posts, but if I have ever claimed that any confection other than caramel is my favorite, I was lying. Actually, it can be almost anything in the general family of cooked sugars, with an overwhelming preference for recipes that include butter and cream. Pralines, toffee, and brittle are definitely in this category (except peanut brittle, because the legumes don't do it for me). Probably, though, if you set out a buffet of all possible sweets, I would grab a spoon and dig in for a warm slurp of buttery, smooth caramel sauce.

 
This one is perfect. I don't even have any other comments about it. Just follow the directions.
_______________________________ 
Caramel Sauce
½ cup sugar
½ cup white corn syrup
¼ cup butter or margarine
1 cup half & half
1 tsp vanilla
 
In a saucepan, place sugar, syrup, butter, and ½ cup cream. Cook slowly, stirring frequently, until a little mixture dropped in cold water forms a hard ball [about 260F on a candy thermometer]. Add ½ cup cream and cook until a little mixture forms a thread when dropped from a spoon [about 230F]. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Serve warm. [Yield: approx. 1-½ cups]
_______________________________ 

**BONUS TIP**

Sprinkle a tiny pinch of coarse salt (fleur de sel if you wanna get really fancy) over the caramel before serving.

**EXTRA BONUS TIP**
 Make homemade vanilla ice cream, then lightly stir in crumbled pralines and cooled caramel sauce. Mmmmmmm! (I'd share a photo, but I already ate it.)

 

***EXTRA BONUS TIP UPDATE***

Even though I ate the praline-caramel-swirl ice cream, I recreated the delicious results by spooning caramel and praline crumbles on top of plain vanilla ice cream. This time, I remembered to take a photo. How yummy does this look??