Salted Caramel Sauce.. for Scones..for cake..or on a spoon..

This sauce was born during one of those ‘you know you are a food blogger moments’ as it was nearly bedtime, and my mind was pondering at the sad thought of pouring away the last of the double cream that I was quite sure was to have been used by the previous day and then thought turned to twitter…and a little googling and both came up with the glorious suggestion I made Salted caramel sauce! 

I’ve made caramel sauce before in the form of Rachel Allen’s heavenly toffee apple crumble and I have become extremely fond (read that as addicted) to salted caramel and decided to go ahead with making salted caramel sauce, and after telling B I was a little crazy as no I was not coming to bed, I was in fact making caramel sauce he just nodded and off I went downstairs in my pyjamas and set about dragging baskets out of the cupboards and making a lovely late night mess in the kitchen. During the process of stirring it, I managed to locate an empty jar under the sink for the sauce (that only faintly smelled of the sundried tomato chutney it previously held) and managed to successfully fill it perfectly to the top! Pure lucky coincidence!

I did have thoughts of melting it back down to make a cake filling but then some heavenly Rodda's clotted cream arrived…we made some scones…and ya know the cake can wait – for salted caramel and clotted cream scones came to me in a dream and turned into sweet reality! Obviously do not open it late at night under the cover of darkness with a spoon for you shall have sugary filled dreams but heck, better than a nightmare right?

The recipe is based on this one for a coffee version (to definitely be tried at a later date!) and we love it! Its unsurprisingly sweet with a subtle hint of salt that just works so amazingly well together. As the recipe is in cups I stuck mostly to it, the only odd measurement for me was tablespoons of butter - I just sort of gauged out the chilled butter!

Salt wise, I had a few different salts in the cupboard and initially thought I had picked up the tiny pot that remained of Maldon sea salt flakes but it turned out actually to be the salt crystals for refilling the grinder... Obviously I realised this after it went it but in all fairness it worked perfectly so just go with whatver you have! Saying that I bought some pretty rose pink tinted Himalayan salt this week so will try that next time!

5 tbsp unsalted butter

2/3 cup Double cream

1/2 cup Light brown soft sugar

1/2 tsp sea salt 

 2tsp vanilla extract

In a small heavy saucepan melt the butter, add sugar, salt and cream, bring to the boil whisking constantly, reduce the heat and simmer for 3 minutes or until slightly thickened. Stir in the vanilla, and pour into a sterlised jar.

Apparently it will keep in the fridge up to a month, if of course it lasts that long......

..And so to make amazing scones - I used Rodda's recipe which works perfectly - its just our oven takes a little bit longer so they don't get as large but they still taste great! I noticed on their website the eggwash bit is missing - beat an egg with a little sugar to glaze them prior to baking. 

Top with clotted cream and a layer of the salted caramel sauce in whichever order you prefer!