Coffee Caramel Sauce is the ultimate 10 minute drizzling sauce
If you’ve never made homemade caramel sauce before, this coffee caramel sauce will become your new favorite dessert drizzle.
Made without corn syrup in just 10 minutes, you’ll be topping cookies like chocolate chip pretzel cookies or stirring this into your coffee in no time. And my fail-proof method for making caramel is here to help you make the best caramel without worrying about any of the problems that can happen while making caramel. Let’s melt this sugar down!
| Taste | Texture |
| Toasted caramel with coffee notes | Silky, smooth |
| Active time | Total time | Yield | Difficulty |
| 10 min | 10 min | 2 cups | Easy |
Why coffee caramel sauce is made for cookies
Unlike my vegan caramel sauce which is a little more liquid in consistency, this coffee caramel will set up more like a Kraft caramel.
In fact, you can pour this caramel into a buttered tray and cut it into individual caramel candies.
This is good news for cookies because this caramel sets up into a glossy, but not-too-sticky finish on the tops of cookies.
This caramel is also perfect for dipping apples, giving you the absolute best homemade caramel apples.
Why you should make coffee caramel and caramel sauce in general for yourself at home
- No corn syrup: Caramel is made primarily from melted down sugar, and there is absolutely no reason to make it with corn syrup (other than it’s cheap). I had to pick up 10 different jars of jarred caramel sauce at the store, looking for ones made without corn syrup. When I couldn’t find a single one, in exasperation, I searched specifically for “caramel sauce no corn syrup” and came up with one.
- Better ingredients: Not only can you skip the corn syrup when you make caramel, you can use real heavy cream and butter. Better ingredients make this definitely indulgent drizzle more satisfying, with far superior flavor.
- Cheaper: Even with the Lyle’s Golden Syrup (see more on the science of caramel below), this coffee caramel sauce is much much cheaper to make at home than the pricey $5 a jar caramel without the corn syrup. Shoot, the ones WITH corn syrup aren’t much cheaper, and some, like Ghiradelli are more expensive.
- Fun: Making caramel is a spectator sport. Every time I teach people how to make it, I make them watch the whole thing, noting the changes as the sugar gets closer to changing color. It is genuinely fascinating that this sauce can come out of plain old table sugar.
Ingredients for Coffee Caramel Sauce
- Granulated sugar
- Water
- Lyle’s Golden Syrup : you can use honey, but only if it’s not raw. Raw honey tends to crystallize, leaving the finished caramel not as smooth as it could be.
- Cream
- Butter
- Instant espresso
- Vanilla paste or vanilla extract
- Salt
Equipment needed
- Heavy bottomed skillet, not cast iron, with a silver or other lighter color so that you can monitor the color of the sugar
- Large whisk or long-handled spoon: Do not use a tiny whisk. When you add the butter and cream, the sugar will be MOLTEN, and you want your hand away from it.
- Glass jar or glass measuring cup for storing the caramel
How sugar becomes caramel and why I add syrup to my caramel
Methods of caramel making
To make sugar into caramel, the sugar has to melt down slowly over time without being disturbed. There’s two ways to do this:
- Dry caramel: Sugar is melted alone in a pan. Dry caramel is notoriously difficult to manage as every stove has hot spots in it where your pan will get more heat than others. You can manage the heat by gently swirling the pan as the sugar melts, but if the sugar is disturbed too much, it can change the structure of the sugar, creating weird candy bits. There’s a better way…
- Wet caramel: Here sugar is melted in a pan along with a little water and a syrup of a kind. The syrup acts as a disruptor between the crystals of sugar, preventing the sugar from joining together in brittle chains. This makes for a smooth, glossy caramel. Any syrup can be used, though I prefer Lyle’s Golden Syrup , which is an inverse sugar made from cane sugar. It has a good flavor on its own and it makes superior caramel over corn syrup.
Stages of caramel making
- Initial mixing: Since I always use the wet caramel method, I first mix the sugar, water, and syrup to begin to dissolve the sugar. If you do this in a bowl and not the pan, you keep sugar crystals off the sides of the pan, which can lead to problems later.
- Dissolving: As the sugar begins to boil, the sugar will fully dissolve in the liquid. The liquid will eventually evaporate during cooking, but it will help kick start making a smooth caramel by giving the sugar a medium to dissolve in.
- Clear bubbles: It will take several minutes for the sugar to begin to take on color. It is important to not move the pan around too much and for heaven’s sake do NOT stir the sugar. Doing so will create strands of sugar. Once you have strands in your caramel, they will not melt and the caramel will never do what you want it to.
- Golden edges: Over a couple minutes, the clear bubbles will slow down and become a little thicker. As this happens, you’ll notice golden spots in the caramel. At this point, grab the handle of your skillet/pot and gently swirl the caramel around once or twice to distribute the heat and color.
- A game of chicken: At this point, you must watch the pan intently as you can go from barely golden to burnt in a few seconds. Turn the heat off as soon as you see a deep amber color throughout the pan. More specifically, if you get down to the eye level of the pan, you may see a whiff of smoke coming off the top of the pan. When you see this, turn off the heat immediately.
- Enriching ingredients: To stop the caramel from cooking once you’ve turned off the heat, stir in the butter, cream, and flavorings, stirring them in with a long handled spoon or whisk. The sugar will boil violently, hissing and letting off steam. Keep stirring until the caramel comes together in a smooth, glossy sauce.
Keeping yourself and your family safe while making caramel
Caramel is no joke when it is cooking. It is about the closest you get in the kitchen to pure lava, and if you don’t pay attention, you will burn yourself, or even cut yourself. I talk more about this in my vegan caramel sauce, but here are some additional points on keeping safe:
- Mix your cream with the flavorings: Once the caramel is fully amber, you’ll need to add the cream quickly to stop the cooking. Mixing the cream with the salt and vanilla and in this case coffee will make this process easy.
- Keep kids and pets away: Do not make caramel if you’re cooking while wearing also your baby. No burns in the kitchen, period!
- Don’t get cut: This is one of the weirdest things about caramel, but if you put even hot water in the pan right after cooking, it can create jagged glass-like bits that actually can cut you. Never scrub a pan that you’ve made caramel in; let the pan soak with hot water, gradually using a spatula or dish scraper to help dissolve the sugar into the water instead of scrubbing. You can even simmer some water in the pan if the sugar is being particularly unhelpful.
Recipes to use coffee caramel sauce in
- Chocolate Chip Caramel Pretzel Cookies: I developed this recipe specifically for these cookies!
- Caramel Swirl Chocolate Ice cream
- Homemade Samoas: My goodness these cookies would be incredible with this sauce.
- Caramel Apple Butter Cookies
- Caramel Peanut Chocolate Blondies
- Twix Cookies
- Homemade Caramel Apples: Simply dip whole apples on sticks into this caramel and place them on parchment to set.
Coffee Caramel Sauce
- Total Time: about 10 minutes
- Yield: 2 cups 1x
- Diet: Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Vegan
Description
This caramel sauce is perfect for drizzling on cakes, cookies or using for dipping as it sets up into glassy, chewy, but a not-too-sticky surface. Also, melt a scoop in your coffee and you’ll make a better-than-the-coffee-shop macchiato at home.
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar (200 g)
- 1/4 cup water (59 mL)
- 2 Tablespoons Lyle’s Golden Syrup or honey (not raw honey, see note), (30 mL)
- 1/4 cup heavy cream (59 mL)
- 2 Tablespoons butter (28 g)
- 1 teaspoon instant espresso granules
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Combine the sugar, water, golden syrup, and salt in a small bowl just to moisten the sugar evenly.
- Pour the sugar into a heavy bottom saucepan. Turn the heat on medium.
- Once the sugar starts to boil, you’ll see clear, pale yellow bubbles (color is from the golden syrup).
- Whisk the cream, espresso, vanilla, and salt together in a small bowl. Place the butter on top the cream and keep this bowl near the stove.
- Cook the sugar until you start seeing color around the edges of the pan.
- If you notice that the color seems to be in one spot of the pan but not the rest, gently swirl the sugar in the pan. You may also turn the pan around 180 degrees on the burner to even out the heat.
- Do not stir with a spoon or whisk at this point as you can create sugar crystals and threads you will not be able to incorporate back into the caramel.
- Do not leave the stove. Once you start seeing color watch carefully. As the sugar begins to color, you’ll notice the bubbles start to slow down considerably.
- Caramel can go from pale amber to burnt in a few seconds. Start looking for more deep amber color form across the pan. Right at the end of cooking, you should smell just a hint of burnt sugar and you may see a puff of smoky steam. Once you see this, count to 5 and turn off the heat.
- Add the butter and cream mixture all at once, keeping well back and whisking with a long-handled whisk. Whisk until everything is smooth and glossy.
- Transfer the caramel to a glass jar. It will keep for about 2 weeks in the fridge. You can use the caramel immediately in a recipe like chocolate chip caramel pretzel cookies.
Notes
A note on honey: If you can’t find or don’t want to use Lyle’s Golden Syrup, honey can make perfectly fine caramel, but if you use raw honey that is crystallized, those crystals will never fully dissolve into the caramel, leaving you with a caramel that’s slightly grainy. It will still taste just fine, but it won’t be as pretty. The easiest solution if you can’t find Lyle’s Golden Syrup is to use honey that’s been pasteurized. The heat treating will prevent the honey from crystallizing.
Make it dairy-free and vegan: Caramel sauce is easy to make vegan. Swap out the cream with coconut cream and use coconut oil in place of the butter. You may have to whisk a little more over about 10 minutes as vegan caramel doesn’t stick together quite as well, but keep whisking as the caramel cools, and it will make a fine sauce. Be sure to use the Lyle’s Golden Syrup to keep it vegan. You could also use corn syrup for vegan caramel, though I avoid it for taste and because it is far too processed of an ingredient.
- Prep Time: 1 minute
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Category: Baking building blocks
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
