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Every now and then I make caramel sauce for this recipe by caramelizing sugar, but sometimes it either:

  • Hardens
  • Burns
  • Doesn't have that nice caramel colour

What are some tips to avoid the above situations?

The recipe states to:

Add the sugar to a hot pan over medium heat and caramelize. Slice bananas add to pan, and coat them in the caramel. Add butter and allow to melt. Add the finely sliced chili if you like it hot, and stir. Pour in the rum, and flambe (set it on fire – carefully). Add coconut milk and twirl.

Adrian Carolli
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  • How exactly are you trying to make it? Caramel sauce isn't made from just sugar, it's a mixture of sugar and dairy products. – Aaronut Jul 27 '14 at 18:55
  • @Aaronut this is the recipe that I sometimes have trouble with when making caramel sauce: http://icookandcode.com/2014/02/11/recipe-hot-banana/ – Adrian Carolli Jul 28 '14 at 18:22
  • Welcome to the site, Adrian. Enjoy! – BaffledCook Jul 28 '14 at 20:16
  • @BaffledCook Thank you. Question: in the above comment I linked to my own recipe is this frowned upon? – Adrian Carolli Jul 28 '14 at 22:41
  • No, but you could quote the recipe. That's clearer and prevents the broken link problem. – BaffledCook Jul 28 '14 at 22:48
  • It's no problem posting your own recipe, but you should post it in your question, rather than bury it in a comment (most people don't read comments). And I agree on summarizing the ingredients and basic prep steps. – Aaronut Jul 29 '14 at 00:19
  • @Aaronut Fair, originally I was under the impression that it would be frowned upon due to it might be perceived as self-promotion so I didn't include it in the question. – Adrian Carolli Jul 29 '14 at 00:21
  • I have added a link to the recipe and quoted the important parts in the question. – Adrian Carolli Jul 29 '14 at 00:24
  • A quirk in your recipe is that usually the butter would be added to finish the sauce before any other ingredients (in this case sliced banana) were added. This isn't really relevant to your issues caramelizing the sugar, but it might affect the consistency of the final sauce. – Allison Jul 29 '14 at 05:37

3 Answers3

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It sounds like you may be having temperature control issues. If it's not dark enough, keep it over low heat for a bit longer. If it's hardening/burning, it's probably caused by one of the following:

1) your stovetop (if burner isn't turned low enough or burner is too large and overheats sides of pan)

2) your pan (easy to burn things if your pan isn't sufficiently thick-bottomed)

3) lack of attention during the carmelization process (you need to move the sugar towards the center once carmelization begins to prevent burning at the edges, but not stir it too much).

You might find these extremely detailed directions helpful for troubleshooting.

Allison
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If it hardens, you probably need to add more liquid.

If it burns, you should have paid more attention. Caramel requires attention.

If it doesn't reach the nice caramel colour, it needs more time.

Try to use the same method, the same amount of heat, the same pot and measure your results. When the result is not what you'd expect / like, change one thing only for the next try.

BaffledCook
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Try a double boiler, like a ganache

Cari
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    Do you think a double boiler will get hot enough? I don’t think so, the boiling point of water (100 C) is the upper limit for a double boiler, sugar caramelizes at significantly higher temperatures. The asker is making caramel from scratch, not melting store-bought caramels. If I misunderstood your post, please [edit] to explain. – Stephie Nov 27 '19 at 06:32