Sundae Sunday

Chocolate is my favourite food in the whole wide world. I would take chocolate to any deserted island any time! But after chocolate, when it comes to ice cream comes CARAMEL. I love it....the luscious richness of it and that sweetness gets me every time.

Oh - did I mention that today is National Ice Cream day? So I made some ice cream to go with the salted caramel sauce I made. I still don't have an ice cream maker so I made it the old fashioned way like I did here....

Today I made David Lebovitz's Philly Style Vanilla Ice Cream. I had heard good things about it via Twitter....so I gave it a whirl. It is delicious. I love all the little specks of vanilla running through it....it's awesome. A great way to use a vanilla bean! Can you see those specks?

Salted Caramel Sauce

I used Dorie Greenspan's recipe and added some fleur de sel....

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

3 tbsp water

1 tbsp light corn syrup

3/4 heavy cream

1 tbsp unsalted butter

1 - 2 tbsp fleur de sel

Put the sugar, water and corn syrup in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan and stir just to combine. Heat over medium-high heat, without stirring, until the caramel turns deep amber, 5 - 10 minutes, depending on the size of your saucepan and the intensity of the heat. As the sugar is caramelizing, wipe down any splatters on the sides of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in cold water. To test the colour of the caramel, drop a bit on a white plate. Don't be timid about the colour - if it's too pale, it won't have much taste.

Lower the heat, stand back from the saucepan - because the caramel will bubble and spatter - and add the cream and butter. When the spatters are less vehement, stir to smooth and calm down the caramel. Remove the pan from the heat.

Pour the caramel into a heatproof jar and cool until it is slightly warm and still pourable before using, about 1 hour.

I added the salt after the cream and butter....I should have let it dissolve a little more...as I was pouring it out I had some salt sitting at the bottom of the pan.

This caramel sauce will keep in a covered container for about a week...if it lasts that long. The recipe says that it makes 1 cup - I ended up with more than 1 cup!

I hope that everyone is enjoying their summer....and eating lots of ice cream...especially today!

Take care,
Tania

Love Big, Bake Often