Sometimes yummy is good enough!

It all started the other day when I went out to lunch and decided to order dessert. Well, it actually started with an excellent piece of tilapia and perfectly cooked green beans, which made me feel confident that the desserts were bound to be as good as they looked.
Because you know...sometimes they aren't, and that is just a crying shame!
It was a simple caramel sauce atop a scoop of vanilla ice cream, atop a piece of humble pecan pie. What about this lovely trio caught my fancy you ask? It was that creamy dreamy caramel sauce, so tan and lovely drizzled on the ice cream and around the pie. Folks, I am not ashamed to say that the taste sensation brought about by that sauce had me wiping delicate little tears of joy from my eyes. It was that good.
Now I am not usually much of a caramel girl....I kinda tend to stick to the chocolate realm and am very comfortable there. But that sauce.... sigh.... it might just be a new love of mine!

Well, me being me, I just had to come home and make an attempt at "the sauce". (I think it deserves quotes) I opened my trusty Joy of cooking cookbook and read the recipe. I stood in the kitchen confidently shaking my head in agreement as I read the recipe. Oh yeah, I got this one, no problem. If you'll please remember from my past post....I have mad skills.

Do you have any idea, how fast sugar burns? Ooo, oooo, oooo ask me, I know!
As long as it takes to set up a cute picture of butter.
See, I didn't read my Joy quite closely enough. It specifically said to bring the sugar to a boil, cover for 2 minutes, uncover and boil gently until it reaches a deep amber color. I may have skimmed over the gently part cause mine was a raging cauldron of bubbles.
That is one stick of butter by the way. Which is how much I used in my second try of "the sauce".

So, not to be overcome by a little pan of burnt sugar I set out to try again. My kids were cheering me on at this point because if chocolate sauce is good, then caramel is bound to be as well.
Into the pan went another cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of water.
Deep breath, and go.
So, you let the sugar melt in the water, until the granules dissolve, then you let it come to a boil.
Notice in this shot the little bubbles waiting to come up.

Then very shortly after this it is foaming and bubbling. Very exciting, let me tell you. The recipe then says turn up the heat, put a lid on it and let it boil for 2 minutes. With heart palpitating and palms sweating I stood there while the seconds ticked by, just sure that my sugar was going to turn on me again.
Although, I did have time to take this picture of me in the reflection of the pan....isn't that orange color just so fun against the silver.

So, I took the lid off and gave a little sniff. "sniff sniff" No burned smell, so I pressed on.
I am convinced now, I didn't press on quite far enough. I did take this second batch of "the sauce" all the way to the end but it just didn't have the depth of flavor or gorgeous color I was looking for, so....on to batch 3 of "the sauce".
I couldn't give up! After all, I had come this far and I still had sugar!!!

If you have made caramel sauce at this point you are possibly thinking, come on Jennifer it just isn't that tricky. Well, here is the thing. I choose to use unrefined cane sugar instead of white sugar and just look at the difference in color to begin with. Go here to read about that a bit if you want to.

So, when the recipe tells me to look for a deep amber color, I am at a bit of a loss because this sugar starts out at amber.
Sigh. I stirred and stirred and stirred.
Did you know you can stir it too much. Yeah, I made that mistake too. I finally gave up on deep amber after about 3 minutes of boiling. (Come on, give me a break, I didn't want to burn it.)
In went the butter
stirring gently until it was all incorporated. So far so good! Well except maybe for all the sugar that was clinging to the sides at the bottom of the pan. I learned later that my pan was too big and that the chosen pan should have tall sides and fit on the burner with no overhang. Oh, the details!
The last thing to go in this batch was the heavy cream.

That was supposed to be a cute smiley face for you, but like everything else I had done up to this point, it didn't go as planned. So you get a half smile, half grimace in agony because you just wanted some stinkin' caramel sauce but not all of this grief face.

And here is the finished product.
I must admit, the color is not what I wanted. The photo is a bit deceptive because this sauce looks distinctly lighter on vanilla ice cream. While the taste is right on for "the sauce", the color....well it just isn't right. It just doesn't do it justice.
Yes, I want to have my sauce and color it right too!
So, since I still had some sugar left I decided to give it another go, but with a different recipe.
A dry caramel recipe. The sugar just goes straight into the pan with no water. Cool, I will try that, I mean really just how hard can that be?
Why, oh why could I not see the impending disaster!?!
I proceeded to burn two batches back to back, never even making it to the butter adding part.
I decided at this point to raise the white flag of surrender and just be happy with my pale sauce.
What else is a girl to do when she is out of sugar?
Hmmm, now what to do with 1 1/2 cups of decent sauce and 1 1/2 cups of super yummy but pale sauce. Is there such a thing as hot caramel, instead of hot cocoa? That deserves some investigation I think!!