Bourbon Caramel Sauce takes traditional caramel sauce up a notch. With the addition of bourbon you can drizzle this sauce on all your favorite cakes, breakfasts, ice cream and more!
With only six ingredients and less than 20 minutes is all you need to make this absolutely delicious Bourbon Caramel Sauce.
This sauce is so easy to make, it would be the perfect sauce to gift to family and friends who enjoy homemade sauces, or are huge Bourbon fans.
Bourbon Caramel Sauce is amazing drizzled on just about anything, think ice cream, pancakes, brownies, any coffee drink hot or cold, cheesecake, cookies, cakes, caramel rolls, and more.
The list is really endless. I won’t judge if you lick the spoon either, this may just happen quite a few times in my house…what can I say, its just that good.
This is one sauce that we keep on hand most of the time, mainly for the adults obviously. My husband and I are huge ice cream eaters and this is one thing that we use most often.
We also love it on pancakes, which coming soon I’ll be sharing one of my favorite recipes that we use this sauce on – so you better be watching out for that one!
Some of our other favorite sauce recipes we have on our site include: Lemon Curd, Chocolate Gravy and Raspberry Sauce.
WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
- With only 6 easily available ingredients, this comes together in no time.
- The hints of bourbon really gives it an amazing flavor.
- You can easily double or triple this recipe.
INGREDIENTS NEEDED (FULL RECIPE AT BOTTOM)
Granulated sugar
Hot water
Heavy cream
Bourbon
Vanilla extract
Salted butter
HOW TO MAKE BOURBON CARAMEL SAUCE, STEP BY STEP
- In a medium saucepan, add the sugar and hot water and stir over high heat until sugar dissolves.
- After the sugar has dissolved and starts to boil, quit stirring. For 5 minutes, cook on high while carefully swirling the pan on occasion, do not stir.
- After its cooked for 5 minutes the mixture will turn a light golden color, you can stop now for a lighter caramel and it will be delicious. You can also choose to continue for about 30 seconds longer until it becomes a slightly deeper golden brown. It doesn’t take long and will happen very quickly. Carefully watch it and smell the mixture for any faint smell of burning sugar. It only takes a quick second to go from dark to burnt. If it burns, you should start over.
- Once it reaches the desired color, remove the sauce from the heat immediately and carefully whisk in the heavy cream. The sauce will start to bubble up as soon as the cream hits the hot liquid, so pour it in slowly.
- Return the pan to medium heat and continue to cook for about 5 minutes, or until the mixture thickens slightly and the color deepens even more. This takes about 5 minutes.
- Then remove the pan from the heat and stir in the bourbon, vanilla, and butter. If the sauce seems runny, don’t worry, it will thicken as it cools
- Once it’s cooled, store in a glass jar in the refrigerator.
HOW DO YOU KEEP CARAMEL SAUCE FROM GETTING GRAINY?
One of the many reasons that graininess can happen in your caramel sauce is if you stir your sauce while it’s cooking. Stirring it can cause crystals to form on the side of the saucepan and will fall off into the sauce, changing the texture.
To prevent this, you can make sure you DO NOT stir it. You can also add an acidic agent, like a little bit of lemon juice or you can replace some of the sugar with corn syrup which won’t crystalize as easily.
WHY YOU SHOULD NOT STIR THE SAUCE:
Stirring your Bourbon Caramel Sauce while still in the pan can cause crystals to form on the sides of the pan, which will ruin the texture of your sauce.
Try your best to resist the urge to stir it, this easy caramel bourbon sauce does not need to be stirred.
WHAT DOES BURNT SUGAR SMELL LIKE AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
The smell of burnt sugar when making your caramel sauce isn’t good news. It will smell very strong and quite bitter, very similar to burnt toast.
If you start to smell this, it’s too late, your caramel is burnt and you will need to start over. There’s no way to salvage this caramel sauce, scrap it and start fresh.
WHAT BOURBON SHOULD I USE?
Just like cooking with wine you will want to use a good bourbon that you would want to drink! Some of my favorites that we keep on hand and use a lot include:
- Makers Mark
- Evan Williams Single Barrel
- Heaven’s Door
- Broken Barrel
- Knob Creek
HOW TO STORE:
Once cooled, it is best stored in a glass jar with a lid where it will keep for up to two weeks, we do not recommend freezing.
TIPS AND TRICKS:
- If you are new to making caramel or this is your first time making this recipe, it may be smart to stop when the sugar and water mixture is a light golden color. Your sauce will still be incredible! Once you get the hang of it, you can start experimenting with making the caramel color darker and richer.
- Use extreme caution and be very careful when adding the cream to the hot sugar and water mixture in your saucepan. It will bubble up like crazy and double in size for a brief moment, be sure your saucepan is large enough to allow for this expansion without creating a huge mess.
- You can omit the bourbon if you’d like to and you’ll wind up with a tasty basic caramel sauce.
- You can substitute the bourbon for light or dark rum.
- This can be doubled or tripled.
- We do not recommend freezing.
This Bourbon Caramel Sauce is dark, rich, and so decadent. It’s the easy caramel sauce that you’ve been searching for and the best part is, it goes on EVERYTHING!
IF YOU LIKE THIS RECIPE THEN YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:
If you’ve tried this BOURBON CARAMEL SAUCE or any other recipe on my site, let me know in the comment section how it turned out, we love hearing from our readers! You can also follow along with me on PINTEREST, FACEBOOK and INSTAGRAM to see more amazing recipes and what shenanigans I’m getting into!
Bourbon Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup hot water
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon bourbon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoon salted butter
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, add the sugar and hot water and stir over high heat until sugar dissolves.
- After the sugar has dissolved and starts to boil, quit stirring. For 5 minutes, cook on high while carefully swirling the pan on occasion, do not stir.
- After its cooked for 5 minutes the mixture will turn a light golden color, you can stop now for a lighter caramel and it will be delicious. You can also choose to continue for about 30 seconds longer until it becomes a slightly deeper golden brown. It doesn't take long and will happen very quickly. Carefully watch it and smell the mixture for any faint smell of burning sugar. It only takes a quick second to go from dark to burnt. If it burns, you should start over.
- Once it reaches the desired color, remove the sauce from the heat immediately and carefully whisk in the heavy cream. The sauce will start to bubble up as soon as the cream hits the hot liquid, so pour it in slowly.
- Return the pan to medium heat and continue to cook for about 5 minutes, or until the mixture thickens slightly and the color deepens even more. This takes about 5 minutes.
- Then remove the pan from the heat and stir in the bourbon, vanilla, and butter. If the sauce seems runny, don't worry, it will thicken as it cools
- Once it's cooled, store in a glass jar in the refrigerator.
Notes
- If you are new to making caramel or this is your first time making this recipe, it may be smart to stop when the sugar and water mixture is a light golden color. Your sauce will still be incredible! Once you get the hang of it, you can start experimenting with making the caramel color darker and richer.
- Use extreme caution and be very careful when adding the cream to the hot sugar and water mixture in your saucepan. It will bubble up like crazy and double in size for a brief moment, be sure your saucepan is large enough to allow for this expansion without creating a huge mess.
- You can omit the bourbon if you’d like to and you'll wind up with a tasty basic caramel sauce.
- You can substitute the bourbon for light or dark rum.
- This can be doubled or tripled.
- We do not recommend freezing.
Nutrition
Tornadough Alli is not a nutritionist or dietitian, and any nutritional information shared is an estimate. If calorie count and nutritional value is important to you, we recommend running the ingredients through whichever online nutritional calculator you prefer. Calories and values can vary depending on which brands were used.
Patti
Thus is the bomb! I did it with the salted caramel crown and all I can say is, WOW!! Awesome recipe, thank you!!