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Why You’ll Love My Recipe
With my recipe, there’s no need to pay a premium at the coffee shop to add a little touch of luxury to your day! Make this homemade caramel syrup to fancy up your coffee (and desserts!) at home.
If you’re not a coffee fan, you can try this caramel syrup as a fun topping for pancakes and waffles! You can also pour some over my Banana Split Cake, or drizzle some over Old Fashioned Gingerbread to give it a little extra sweetness!
Karlynn’s Recipe Notes
- Skill Level: This syrup is easy to make and uses ingredients you probably already have on hand! Just keep an eye on the sugar as it cooks to make sure that nothing burns!
- Total Time: It only takes 10 minutes to make this syrup—and the results are definitely worth the effort!
- Variations: Add extra salt (to taste) to transform this into a salted caramel syrup perfect for coffee drinks and cocktails!
- Tools For This Recipe: You will need a heavy bottomed saucepan, a pastry brush (to help keep your syrup from crystallizing), and a glass mason jar for storage.
What You’ll Need For Ingredients
Granulated Sugar: At its heart, this recipe is a caramelized simple syrup, and all simple syrups start with a 1:1 ratio of sugar and water.
Corn Syrup: Corn syrup is excellent at keeping sugar solutions from crystallizing! This is because corn syrup is mostly fructose where sugar is almost entirely sucrose—a sugar molecule that contains both glucose and fructose. Glucose has the unfortunate tendency to crystallize into little lumps and become gritty, where fructose doesn’t.
Vanilla Extract: The vanilla extract in this recipe is there to add a little extra depth and roundness to the end product! Make sure that you add it after you have removed your syrup from the heat, as the flavour will boil off if you add it too early!
Salt: Even if you’re not looking for a truly salted caramel flavor profile, don’t skip the pinch of salt in this recipe! Without it, your syrup will come out flat tasting and unappealing.
How To Make Caramel Syrup
This is a quick overview of the recipe. The full list of ingredients & complete step-by-step instructions are in the recipe card below.
- In a small heavy bottomed pot, combine granulated sugar, water, and corn syrup.
- Cook over low heat, stirring until the sugar has completely dissolved. Then turn the heat up to medium high and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
- Continue to boil and stir the mixture until it is a light amber colour (around 10 minutes), then remove from the heat and carefully add 1/3 cup of warm water, watching out for steam and spitting. Stir in the vanilla and a pinch of salt.
- Allow the syrup to cool completely, then pour into a glass jar and store in the refrigerator.
Karlynn’s Tips and Tricks for the Perfect Caramel Syrup
- Keep Things Clear: While corn syrup can help keep your sugar syrups from crystallizing, you might still see little granules of sugar forming on the sides of your saucepan as you boil your syrup, which can cause it to seize up and solidify. If you notice crystals forming, you can get rid of them by running a pastry brush that has been dipped in water over the sugar crystals to melt them and return them to the boiling syrup mixture!
- Cool It: Sugar syrup solutions can get hotter than 212°F, so make sure that you let it cool all the way down before pouring it into a vessel for storage, otherwise your jar or container might crack or melt!
Storage Instructions
Your caramel syrup will keep in an airtight glass jar in the refrigerator for up to six weeks, but it’s such a perfect topping for desserts and wonderful addition to a cup of your favorite coffee that we bet you’ll use up every last drop long before then!
Having little homemade treats like caramel syrup on hand can make a regular weekday feel a little more special! An added bonus is that you won’t feel as tempted to hit up a drive through when you’re in the mood for a caramel-infused treat!
Give this recipe a try and let me know how it turned out for you in the comments below!
Happy Cooking!
Karlynn
More Icing, Glaze, and Sauce Recipes
- Try our Raspberry Sauce for a fruity, vibrant addition to pancakes, cheesecakes, or a scoop of vanilla ice cream!
- For a rich and buttery alternative to maple syrup, why not give our Brown Sugar Sauce a try?
- If you’re looking for something a little different, try our sweet and tart Rhubarb Sauce!
Caramel Syrup
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup water
- 1 teaspoon corn syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch salt
- ⅓ cup warm water
Instructions
- In a small heavy bottomed pot, combine the granulated sugar, water, and the corn syrup.
- Cook over low heat, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved completely.
- Turn the heat up to medium high and bring to a boil,stirring constantly.
- Continue to boil and stir until the mixture is a light amber color, around 10 minutes, then remove from the heat immediately.
- Carefully pour in the 1/3 cup of warm water, watching out for any spitting from the mixture.
- Stir in the vanilla and pinch of salt.
- Let the mixture cool completely, then store in a glass jar in the refrigerator for up to 6 weeks.
- Use in coffee, over ice cream and other desserts.
Notes
- Calories are for the entire batch
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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