Recipe Testing - Salted Caramel Sauce

Well, there is a first time for everything.  Today is the first time ever that I am doing a dedicated food post on this blog.  Obviously this is a sign that I am not one to spend much time in the kitchen.  I have my sister-in-law's baby shower coming up though and she threw such an awesome one for me last year that I would like to return the favor.

Her baby shower is going to be fall themed (she loves fall colors, the baby is due in the fall, and the shower is actually scheduled on the very first day of fall so it's perfect).  I thought that caramel apples sounded like they would go well with the theme, but they are messy.  So I settled on the idea of doing a salted caramel dip with apples and a variety of fruits.  I also thought it would be cute to make extra salted caramel and put it in little mason jars as party favors.

I found this recipe through Pinterest and decided I better try it out.  It is actually quite easy to make and I already had most of the ingredients at home (it only has four ingredients).  I had no idea that you could just put dry sugar in a pot on the stove and it would melt!  I was kind of fascinated by that.  Also, it takes a lot of stirring.  Her instructions say that it will "take a few minutes" for the sugar to melt and for me it took more than just a few.  It took eight minutes of vigorous stirring and I thought my arm might fall off.  The recipe yields 2 cups of sauce so I'm going to have to make it multiple times over.  I know there is no way I could just quadruple the recipe and still be able to stir it.

Anyway, the point of my rambling is that this stuff is good!  I have used it to dip in a variety of fruits, and I have added it to brownies.  That was probably one of the more genius ideas I have had.

 Tonight I'm going to make caramel corn.

So, try this recipe.  It is delicious, simple, and is a great arm workout.

-Kira