Salted Butter Caramel Sauce

Adapted from The Perfect Scoop, Revised and Updated This sauce is easy to make. The trick is to get the caramel base as dark as possible, in step #2, close to burnt, but not quite. The caramel will start to smoke, and a few seconds later, will smell rich and caramelized. That's the moment to remove it from the heat and add the cream. For more guidance and photos, check out my post: How to make the perfect caramel. If you wish to use unsalted butter, you can add an additional scant 1/4 teaspoon of flaky salt to the finished sauce, or to taste. A few readers found the sauce to be on the salty side (I use fleur de sel de Guérande), but sea salts can vary. So you might want to start by using 1/2 teaspoon in step #3, then adding more, to taste. In lieu of the vanilla extract, you could add a half vanilla bean, split lengthwise to the butter and sugar in the first step.