I don’t know how I got this idea in my head. I think I was brainstorming about Thanksgiving desserts and somehow landed on a cake drizzled with this stuff. You’ll see that later. 😉
Because I’ve only made homemade caramel sauce a couple of times, literally two times, I was pretty sure this wasn’t going to work. Boiling sugar in a pot on the stove is kind of intimidating to me, especially when adding things that sizzle and boil. But as soon as I added the Kahlua, oh my goodness, it smelled so good. Sugar, and butter, and boozy coffee scents. Marking that one down for my future baking-scented candle line.
This caramel sauce will totally make you forget about that salted stuff. I have a whole list of flavored caramels I want to make now! I really want/NEED to make one with Nutella.
This silky-smooth sauce only has FOUR ingredients, and you just combine them all in a pot and stir it for a while. After settling on this recipe and going with these four ingredients, I followed this caramel sauce tutorial from Sally’s Baking Addiction. She’s got some awesome step-by-step photos at the bottom of the post.
So make this caramel sauce for Thanksgiving, Christmas, National Boozy Caramel Day, really whenever the heck you want. I promise promise promise you won’t regret it! It’s addictive and you’ll want to eat it straight from the jar. Speaking from experience, y’all.
Check back tomorrow or Monday for the cake recipe that goes along with this sauce. It’s a good one.
Kahlua Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 6 tbsp butter cut into tablespoons and then in half
- 1/2 cup Kahlua
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- In a saucepan over medium high heat, cook the sugar until it starts to melt on the bottom. During this step, you need to stir it pretty continuously so it doesn't burn. While stirring, the sugar will stick together and form hard clumps/shards.
- At this point, you don't have to stir AS much because you want the sugar to get hot enough to melt and turn a golden brown color. So stir the sugar, give it a moment, and then stir again. And when I say "moment," I don't mean walk away and come back. Just stand there and give it a second. Then stir again, repeating this process until all the clumps are melted and the sugar has turned golden brown. Reduce heat to medium.
- Stirring continuously with one hand, add the butter with the other. Because the butter is colder than the caramel, the mixture will bubble and sizzle quite a bit. But just keep stirring!
- Once all the butter has completely melted, still continuously stirring, slowly pour in the Kahlua. The mixture will sizzle even more than before. I kind of added a little Kahlua, stirred until it stopped sizzling, added some more, and so on until all the Kahlua was added.
- After you've added the Kahlua, let the mixture simmer for 1 minute. It will bubble up and double in height. Stand at the stove and watch to make sure it doesn't boil over.
- Remove the pot from heat and stir in salt. Let the caramel sauce cool before using. Store in a jar or sealed container in your fridge. Warm up the caramel again before using.
Oh my word, this looks amazing! I am drooling!
Homemade caramel is always amazing, and adding Kahlua could only make it better!
This looks so ridiculously good, especially with the Kahlua!!
I’m salivating! This looks awesome.
You’re a girl after my heart. Kahlua…caramel…YESSS. Pinned. Making. Putting on everything (including in ALL the drinks).
This tastes fantastic! It looks as good as it tastes!
I always freak out a little when i make caramel because there every three times I got it right, there’s always one time where it ends up a hot mess. This is perfection, Beth! I need to make a few vats so that I can pour it over everything.
Oh man I need this!! I’ve made homemade caramel sauce just a few times myself and am always super skeptical that it’ll actually turn out. Lots of room for error there! I’m definitely giving this a try this holiday season! 🙂
Kahlua caramel sauce???? And four ingredients?? Girl, this looks and sounds awesomeeeee. I would put this on everything! Or you know, just drizzle straight into my mouth…
All I had to do was read the title to know that I was to drizzle this sauce over everything! A big slice of apple pie will do!
Oh wow!! Now this is awesome! I would have zero self control with this stuff! 🙂
This caramel looks amazing!! I will be using caramel so much this holiday season and can’t wait to try this recipe!! Pinned! 🙂
Oh man I need some of this!
I need to make the biggest batch of this sauce ASAP. In case it snows soon here in NJ and I need to keep warm and stir it into some hot cocoa, or pour it on pretty much everything. 😀 Awesome recipe, Beth!
Kahlua and caramel– literally two of my favorite foods! I’ve got to try this.
Love caramel sauce and the addition of kahlua is INCREDIBLE. Definitely a recipe I need to make!
This is a fantastic recipe! Thank you so much. I have ruined many batches of caramel sauce in my past but this one turned out great on the first try. This sauce tastes great alone and tonight I’m going to let people drizzle it over cheesecake. Thank you so much for the easy to follow instructions!
I loved this cake it looks great, an smells so good, because but upon reading the direction it looks like a step is missing in the cake do I had to improvise. I sampled the caramel after making a dbl batch lol, Ian I’m worried I still taste the alcohol…is it ok to serve to kids? I think I’m going to leave it in the jar for adults to to do on their own.
Does the alcohol cook out?
This is very good! After making it, I dumped in about 4 cups of whole cashews and spooned them into mini muffin tins. Since they were still gooey (didn’t know how firm the sauce would get), I froze them overnight and dipped them into a chocolate mixture of Chocolate Almond Bark and dark chocolate. I’ll be making both again!