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1
Measure out all of your ingredients (and keep your butter in the fridge) and pull out all of the tools you need (you will need a 2-quart heavy bottomed pot with a lid, a candy thermometer, a small heavy bottomed pot, and a whisk).
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2
Pour the water into your 2-quart pot, and pour the sugar into the center of the pot. You want to create a little mound of sugar submerged under the water, so make sure to pour the sugar into one spot of the pot! Cover the pot, and bring to a boil over high heat, which will take about 3 minutes.
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3
Remove lid and insert your candy thermometer. Keep boiling the sugar until it reaches 300 F, which will take about 15 minutes. Then reduce the heat to medium.
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4
Place the cream in the small heavy-bottom pot and bring to a simmer over high heat. (In a perfect world your cream will reach a simmer once the sugar reaches 350 F in the next step, but if it reaches a simmer early, just remove it from the heat.)
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5
Once the sugar reaches 350 F (this will happen about 5 minutes after you reduce the heat to medium in step 4), it will be a dark amber color and begin to smoke. At this point, immediately turn off heat. (If you have an electric stove remove it from the burner.)
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6
Very slowly stream in the warm cream. The sugar will bubble, but as long as you do this step slowly, you will be good to go!
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7
Once all of the cream is added whisk the mixture well. Add the salt (if you don't want to make salted caramel, just add a pinch of salt here; if you want salted caramel, add the full listed amount) and butter and whisk until it is completely incorporated (the butter will probably bubble a bit too).
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8
Let it cool and then pour over a large scoop of vanilla ice cream or store in an airtight container in the fridge!
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9
Notes:
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10
1. I adapted this recipe from Cook's Illustrated.
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2. Step-by-step photos on the related blog link.
