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Honey Thyme Caramel Sauce | 10 portions

  • element, recipe, sweet
As always with caramel, the key is to be brave in cooking it far enough to be bittersweet but not burnt. Using honey adds a savoury depth to caramel sauce and we can drop this into any number of sweet recipes and perhaps it could even work in a savoury dish.

Ingredients:

    • 300g honey
    • 75g unsalted butter
    • A couple of fresh thyme sprigs
    • 100ml heavy cream
    • A pinch of sea salt
     

    Method:

    Pour 300g of honey and 75g of unsalted butter into a 24cm saucepan. Add a couple of fresh thyme sprigs to the mixture. Place the saucepan over medium heat and bring everything to a gentle boil. Once it starts boiling, let it cook for another 10 minutes until the mixture darkens and begins to smell like burnt sugar.

    Carefully remove the thyme sprigs using a fork then add 100ml of double cream. The mixture will bubble up, so ensure your pan is large enough to handle this. Whisk the cream into the honey mixture until completely combined.

    Remove the pan from heat and stir in a pinch of sea salt. Allow the caramel sauce to cool before transferring it to a container. Store it in the fridge, where it will keep for up to 5 days and harden slightly. 

    To use, you can gently heat a portion of it if you want a pourable consistency. 

     

    Variations:

    Honey –  naturally different honeys give different flavour. Starting with good honey will give a good result, although the caramelisation means settling for a cheaper product can still give good flavour.

    Herbs – rosemary, perhaps fresh bay, lemongrass – you want hard herb that you can pull out of the pan. 

    Cream – using just a little will create a sticky toffee, adding more will mean it can be poured straight out of the fridge. I like this in-between ratio where you can warm it slightly to pour, or scoop out a dollop.

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