Browned Butter Salted Caramel Sauce

Prepare

1. You'll need a high-sided heavy bottomed saucepan for this recipe. Preferably one that is stainless or light in color, so you can use visual cues (the color) to determine doneness of the butter and caramel.

Brown the butter

1. Add butter to saucepan and heat on MED-LOW.
2. The butter will melt, foam up, then the foam will start to go away. Whisk or swirl the pan frequently as it cooks.
3. Brown flecks (the butter solids) will start to form at the bottom. Once they're golden brown (not dark brown or black), and the butter smells nutty, immediately remove pan from the heat.
4. Pour butter into small bowl and set aside to cool.
5. Wash out and dry the saucepan.

Melt the sugar

1. Add sugar to the saucepan and heat over MED-LOW heat, and stir often with a rubber spatula.
2. After several minutes, the sugar will start to melt into a whiteish, then light brown liquid and will look clumpy. More and more clumps will appear, then they will start to melt into a brown liquid. Remember, stir often, breaking up clumps if needed.
3. Make sure all the clumps of sugar have melted before moving on to the next step.

Make the caramel sauce

1. Pour the browned butter in slowly, whisking as you pour.
2. Turn off the burner and remove pan from heat. Add the cream slowly, while whisking continuously.
3. It will foam and bubble up like crazy, but keep whisking and it will settle down.
4. The bubbling will go down and become a glossy sauce.
5. Turn the burner back on to simmer for 1-3 minutes on LOW heat, whisking often.
6. Sauce will thicken as it cools, so if it looks thin, just give it time to cool some.
7. Once it cools for a little bit, stir in the salt.

Serve

1. Use right away or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 2-4 weeks.