Butterscotch Sauce

A soothing melange of sugar, cream, vanilla flavour, and a salty tang

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 cup of tightly packed dark brown sugar
•  ¾ cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon salt

 Method

1 First, before you begin, make sure you have everything ready to

  go - the cream and the brown sugar next to the pan, measured and  waiting. Making butterscotch      

is a fast process that cannot wait   for hunting around for ingredients.

2 In a heavy bottomed stainless steel 2 quart saucepan, melt butter over low to medium heat. Just

  before butter is melted, add all dark brown sugar at once and stir with wooden spoon until sugar 

  is uniformly wet.

3 Stir infrequently until mixture goes from looking grainy to molten lava. Make sure to get into

  the corners of your pot, and watch closely to notice how the mixture changes. It will take about 

  3 to 5 minutes.

4 Right before you add the cream, the caramelizing brown sugar will begin to look and feel more

  like liquid and less like thick wet sand.

5 At this point add all the cream at once and replace your spoon with a whisk. Lower heat a little

  and whisk cream into mixture. When liquid is uniform, turn heat back to medium and whisk every 

  few minutes for a total of 10 minutes.

6 After liquid has been boiling on the stove for its 10 minutes, turn heat off and let rest for a

  minute or two before transferring into a heatproof storage vessel. (I prefer a stainless steel 

  or glass bowl.) Cool to room temperature.

7 When butterscotch liquid is room temperature, take a small taste. It's important to know what

  cooked brown sugar and butter tastes like, and what happens when transforming that flat  

  sweetness into real butterscotch flavor. Whisk in half the salt and vanilla extract. Taste

  again. Add more salt and vanilla extract to taste.