Salted Caramel Buttercream Recipe & How to Make Caramel (2024)

FAQs

How to make store-bought caramel frosting better? ›

Salted caramel sauce. Made with British double cream and sea salt. This rich, smooth sauce is made with British cream for a luxurious texture, with sea salt to enhance the sweetness. Use it as a filling for tartlets or drizzle it over a bowl of Madagascan vanilla ice cream.

do is add more sugar to overcome the "salty".

If caramels are too soft, that means the temperature didn't get high enough. Again place the caramel back into a sauce pan with a couple of tablespoons of water and heat to 244°F. If you don't have a candy thermometer, you can test with a cold water test. Details on how to use this method can be found here.

To help prevent the caramel from crystallizing, you can add an acid to the sugar before you begin: add about half a tablespoon of lemon juice to each cup of sugar and mix it with your hands; it should be the consistency of wet sand. Heat the sugar over medium-high heat until it melts.

Heat the cream first before adding to the caramelized sugar.

Adding cold cream to the very hot caramel will cause it to seize and clump. Warming the cream first will allow it to incorporate more easily.

Add more sugar to the sauce.

Most caramel sauces are made by caramelizing sugar and adding milk and a little salt. If you increase the amount of sugar in the recipe you'll end up with a thicker caramel. Try increasing the sugar by about 1/3.

Flavour Contrast: Normal caramel is characterised by its sweet, buttery taste, derived from caramelised sugar combined with butter and cream. It has a rich, indulgent flavour profile that is predominantly sweet. In salted caramel, adding salt creates a contrast that enhances the complexity of the caramel's flavour.

Salt, on the other hand, stimulates the taste buds responsible for detecting sour and umami flavors, which can enhance the perception of sweetness. The addition of salt to caramel not only enhances the sweetness, but also adds a savory element to the flavor profile.

I emptied the bottle into a small saucepan and brought it to a boil. Then I added about half a teaspoon of kosher salt and let it continue boiling for 10 minutes. It thickened and darkened significantly, which I took as a good sign.

What happens if you use salted butter instead of unsalted in buttercream? ›

You can use salted or unsalted butter and opinions are divided on which is best. Many recipes for this icing suggest unsalted. However a little salt brings out the flavour so they then often add salt.

Follow this tip: Since butter makes up so much of a batch of buttercream (one-third to half is butter!), stick with using good-quality, unsalted butter. Use a brand that tastes good to you, and even better if it has a high percentage of fat and low water content.

You need the butter to emulsify the sugar syrup, which won't be visually apparent because the syrup is clear. If you underwhip at this step, your final frosting will have a overly buttery (fatty or greasy) feel.

To thicken your buttercream when you've added too much liquid, simply add more powdered sugar, 2-3 Tablespoons at a time, until the desired consistency is reached. If it's more of a matter of the kitchen temperature being too warm, pop your buttercream into the refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes.

Powdered sugar can thicken a glaze for all kinds of desserts. It works as a drizzle for olive oil polenta cakes, brownies, cupcakes, or glazed eggnog scones. Just be mindful of how much powdered sugar you add to the caramel if you don't want it to turn too thick.

To thin caramel, just add some cream or water over heat. Melt caramel loaves in the oven. You can also add corn syrup or lemon juice to caramel sauces to prevent them from crystallizing.