Corn Syrup Is The Secret You Need For Making Caramel Sauce Like A Pro

Caramel sauce is one of the most important additions to any home cook's repertoire. It comes together quickly on the stove, and it elevates store-bought ice cream to a fancy dessert. However, it's also ridden with secret pitfalls. Sugar can easily seize up and become lumpy, burn until it's bitter and acrid, or be undercooked, leaving it grainy and unpleasing to the tongue. In the end, it can ruin your entire dessert. That's why it's important to embrace another form of sugar from your cabinet when making caramel sauce — we're talking about corn syrup. Corn syrup is the tried-and-true ingredient you can include to ensure velvety smooth caramel syrup each and every time. Adding corn syrup to your caramel sauce means you never have to fret over a sauce turning lumpy or not as smooth as you prefer. Grab a bottle of this ingredient and prepare to taste the best homemade caramel sauce of your cooking life.

Cooking with sugar involves knowing when it turns from gritty and grainy to smooth and silky. Understanding the science behind how sugar cooks can help you get it right. When used instead of sugar, corn syrup acts as a stabilizer of sorts. Because of its chemical make-up, it acts as an "interfering agent," which means it stops the sugar molecules from joining back together after it melts. When sugar comes back together, the end result is a grainy caramel sauce — that is why corn syrup is a useful ingredient in this particular recipe. You only need a dash to make sure the sauce stays buttery, velvety, and completely emulsified. Once it begins boiling, you'll know you've completely dissolved the crystal structure of the sugar. Now that you know how to make the perfect corn syrup, you get to indulge in the fun part — eating it! Here is the best way to enjoy it.

Caramel syrup is, of course, delicious on ice cream. It is naturally sweet (it is mostly sugar, after all), and it can stand up to unsweetened whipped cream and salty toasted peanuts in an ice cream sundae. It is also perfect for dipping — gently warm the sauce and serve it in a mini fondue pot for a delightfully interactive dessert. Tart green apples and buttery pound cake are just two of the nearly endless options that can be delicious dippers. Serve it on a plate as a buttery, sugary foundation for apple pie, or for an indulgent experience, drizzle it over chocolate cake. You wouldn't be amiss to add a touch of salt as the juxtaposition of salt and sugar hits all the right notes. Of course, you can also simply eschew all of these ideas and just go straight to eating the caramel out of its storage container by itself.