5 Caramel Treats Worth Breaking Your Diet For

Any pastry cook worth their salt wears their caramel splatter burns as a badge of honor, but you don't have to be a professional chef to enjoy smooth and luxurious caramel sauce at home.

With our simple guide to caramel sauce, we promise that you will become a pro in no time without suffering through the battle wounds. Caramel sauce adds instant sweetness with a complex nutty after taste, caused by the controlled burning of the sugar grains. Combine the burnt sugar with butter and cream, and you have one irresistible addition ready for drizzling over cookies, layering in cakes, and topping custards.

Once you've figured out the basics for making the perfect caramel sauce, try adding your sauce to ice cream, cakes, or apple slices; you can also check out our picks for five irresistible caramel treats well worth the calorie splurge.

Grab your spoons and get ready to take a bite of this  served with a decadent honey sauce. Each spoonful is sweet, flavorful, and smooth. If you've never had a pot de crème before, it's the French version of an American pudding. — Living Sweet Moments

For the Caramel Pots De Crème with Honey Sauce recipe, click here.

Want a quick caramel fix? Combine pretzels and chocolate with homemade caramel for a quick and easy treat that is both salty and sweet.

For the Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Bark recipe, click here.

 stuffed inside a flaky pastry shell doused in rich chocolate ganache and salted caramel — what more could you want out of a dessert? — Leigh-Anne Anderson

For the Chocolate Cream Puffs with Salted Caramel Custard Filling recipe, click here.

This is one of the Combine all of the ingredients in a blender, pulse until smooth, pour the custard into ramekins, steam in a water bath in the oven, and chill. The hardest part of this recipe is waiting the two hours for the flan to chill so you can enjoy it. — Curry and Comfort

For the Coconut Caramel Flan recipe, click here.

These blondies use Greek yogurt for a lighter taste, but the swirls of caramel keep this treat tasting decadent.

For the Salted Caramel Blondies recipe, click here.