Vegan (Almost) Caramel Sauce 5/5 Spoons

So my lovely vegan friend Kris Anne (who has a wonderful food blog) has been awesome about sending me recipes I might want to try. We have been discussing caramels as a gift/Christmas treat this past week and I'm not sure she had very good luck. But I decided to venture into candy making territory except not really. I decided to just make a caramel sauce instead of candies. I was out of Earth Balance sticks so I had to use my Safeway O Organics Unsalted Sweet Cream Butter I had in the fridge. I swear I will make this vegan someday.



I had a craving for caramel popcorn last night and I was certainly not going to go to the store at 10 pm. And since I had meant to make candies, I figured I would just try to make caramel sauce instead and used this recipe. I am not a candy maker and I have never made anything caramel related from scratch. It was pretty darn easy. I used all the same ingredients (except for the margarine part) and just kept an eye on the pot. Just swirl a few times and scrap the bottom with a rubber spatula. Really you can just let this do its thing and just wait for it to turn a dark golden brown color. I halved the recipe just fine and it made about 2 cups of sauce. The flavor is deeply dark and sweet along with being just the right amount of buttery. And if you want a kick ass treat... make some popcorn and pour a bunch of this on, let it cool and munch away. It was ridiculous.

Whatever you do, don't try to eat some of it off the spatula! I am stupid and was desperate for a taste and burnt my finger like crazy. This stuff is like burning hot glue and won't come off your finger unless you peel it off with your teeth and even then, the damage is done.

When I woke up this morning I wanted to see how it held up and it was rock hard after being in the fridge. You definitely have to heat this up before using it or let it sit at room temp for quite awhile. Once I heated it up (and dipped apple slices in it, yum) it tasted just as good as last night. Just make sure to stay by the microwave, mine bubbled over when I walked away and it was a bastard to clean it up.

I give this recipe:

5/5 spoons!

I realize how many 5/5 spoons I give but that's just because I love food, haha. Either I will dislike something or totally love it. There is rarely an in between for me. So coming this Christmas week I have Spicy Fried Sesame Tofu, my favorite Vegetable Soup with Dumplings recipe (yup, a Rachael Ray recipe, but just trust me) and another favorite recipe for X-Mas Cookies and Icing. See you soon!