Salted butter caramel with Maras salt in a glass jar

Salted butter caramel with Maras salt

In salted butter caramel, salt provides a counterweight. Without it, you have cooked sugar; with it, the flavour opens up and finishes cleanly rather than lingering.

Ingredients — for a 300 ml jar

  • 200 g caster sugar
  • 200 ml full-fat whipping cream
  • 80 g unsalted butter, cut into pieces
  • 1 level teaspoon fine-grain pink Maras salt
  • A few grains of coarse salt to finish, if serving the caramel as a topping

Preparation — 15 min

  1. Gently warm the cream in a small saucepan. It should be hot when added.
  2. Put one third of the sugar into a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat, without water and without stirring. Once melted and amber, add the second third, then the final third.
  3. Remove from the heat when it reaches a mahogany colour. Do not let it darken further or it will turn bitter.
  4. Add the butter pieces and stir. Vigorous bubbling is normal.
  5. Pour in the hot cream in three additions, stirring between each.
  6. Return to low heat for 2 minutes to smooth the mixture, then add the salt off the heat.

Why the cream must be warm

Caramel is at 170 °C, while cream straight from the fridge is at 5 °C. The difference causes violent splashing and sets the sugar into hard blocks that need melting again. Warming the cream and pouring it in three additions makes the mixture easier to emulsify.

Salt is added last: in syrup at 170 °C, it dissolves poorly and settles at the bottom. Off the heat, at around 100 °C, stirring distributes it through the mixture.

One level teaspoon for 200 g of sugar produces distinctly salted caramel. If using it over ice cream rather than as a spread, reduce to three quarters of a teaspoon.

Storage

Pour into a clean container. Cool quickly and refrigerate no later than two hours after preparation. Keep covered at a maximum of 4 °C and, as a precaution for this homemade cream-based preparation, eat within three days. Use a clean spoon. It thickens when cold: gently warm the desired portion in a water bath, stirring until smooth.

Serve on pancakes, in plain yoghurt or over oat bites. To finish a plated dessert, place three grains of coarse salt on the still-warm caramel for a crunchy touch.

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