5 Minute Paleo Caramel Sauce & Soft Caramels
Caramel sauce is the most versatile dessert condiment there is. Drizzle it over ice cream and apple pie. Stir it into your coffee with a little sprinkle of sea salt. Pack some away in your little one’s lunch box with apple slices for dunking. You can do anything, and because my recipes is refined sugar…
Caramel sauce is the most versatile dessert condiment there is. Drizzle it over ice cream and apple pie. Stir it into your coffee with a little sprinkle of sea salt. Pack some away in your little one’s lunch box with apple slices for dunking. You can do anything, and because my recipes is refined sugar free, you can do it guilt-free. So add that extra drizzle on your brownie. Slather that sauce on your pancakes. You won’t regret it.
I know making your own caramel sounds intimidating, but it’s really very easy. In fact, it takes about 5 minutes. No need for a candy thermometer, just prepare a little bowl of ice water for testing and you’re good to go. I’ve got one recipe that can be used to make caramel sauce, soft caramels, or even hard caramels if you so desire. The only thing that changes is the length of cooking time. The longer you cook it, the harder it gets. All you need is some butter, half & half, and your sweetener of choice. The lighter caramel here is made with honey. The darker color you see is made with coconut sugar. Both are simply fantastic.
- 1 C coconut sugar OR honey
- ½ C coconut cream
- 2 TB coconut oil
- 1 TB vanilla extract
- pinch of sea salt
- Melt oil in a saucepan over medium heat.
- Whisk in sugar or honey, salt, and vanilla.
- Stir continuously, until dissolved.
- Whisk in cream and bring to a boil.
- Cook 3 minutes, stirring continuously.
- Remove from heat and cool.
- Sauce will thicken as it cools. Store in refrigerator and stir before serving.
- 1 C coconut sugar OR honey
- ½ C coconut cream
- 2 TB coconut oil
- 1 TB vanilla extract
- pinch of sea salt
- Prepare a small bowl of ice water and set aside.
- melt oil in a saucepan over medium heat.
- Whisk in sugar or honey, salt, and vanilla.
- Stir until dissolved.
- whisk in cream and bring to a boil.
- Cook 8 minutes, stirring continuously, until you reach a "soft ball" stage.
- (To test if your caramel is at the soft ball stage, drip into your bowl of ice water. With your fingers, remove the caramel from the bowl of water. If you can form a soft ball, its done. If it is still too runny, continue cooking. If you want to make hard caramels, cook until you reach "hard crack" stage. When tested in the ice water, your caramel will harden and can break.)
- Pour caramel onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
- Sprinkle with sea salt and cool completely.
- Using a greased knife or pizza cutter, cut into squares. Wrap individually in parchment to prevent sticking.
I tried this but it turned it sort of grainy in texture after it cooled, although it passed the test in the ice water for the soft, chewy kind. When it cooled it go more solid, grainy and not chewy. Closer to fudge but not as creamy. What did I do wrong?
Jeanne, Im so sorry you had trouble! Did you use coconut sugar or honey? These caramels will be a bit softer than traditional caramels because of the sugar, but they should still be chewy. You could also try storing them in the refrigerator.
Coconut sugar. We found we had to add more coconut cream and cook them longer. Thanks for the starting point!
This created a perfect caramel sauce!! Thanks so much. I used coconut sugar, but subbed butter for the coconut oil.
I am so happy you enjoyed it!
Hi Heather, We love your caramel sauce. How much is considered 1 serving?
Thanks
Thank you so much! I’m not really sure how to answer that. As much as you like, i suppose! haha. We don’t count calories here, but there are websites where you can plug in the recipe and it can give you all that info.
Hi, first off, let me say, amazing recipe! YUM! For the sauce, it worked perfectly and was incredible.
However, I tried the caramels (soft) and could not make it work. I tried twice, but still couldn’t find a solution. Now, I love to cook, but am by no means a perfect cook, so I am sure I am doing something wrong. I’m sure it’s not the recipe. So, I am just trying to figure it out here.
I used exact proportions, and boiled for 8 mins the first time,tried the ice bowl test, but it seemed runny, so continued boiling, but cooling, it never thickened. The second time, I boiled it continuously for almost 20 minutes, never got the ice bowl test to succeed…
What could I possibly be doing wrong?? I measured everything exactly. But it’s liquid… totally runny liquid. Tastes great as a sauce, lol, I just can’t get it to thicken. I really want to make these caramels, they look scrumptious!
HELP!
hey! When you do the ice bowl test, are you dripping the caramel in and then feeling it with your fingers?