Vegan Caramel Sauce Recipe | 3 - Ways (2024)

FAQs

How is caramel sauce made from scratch? ›

Combine brown sugar, butter, and milk in a saucepan and bring ingredients to a boil. Remove thickened mixture from heat before adding (optional) vanilla extract. Let the caramel cool slightly before using. The result is an impossibly rich sauce that is guaranteed to satisfy your sweet tooth.

Like regular caramel, this vegan caramel is made from a base of sugar, cream, and butter. We'll be using coconut cream instead of regular cream, and dairy free butter to keep it all dairy free since most caramel is not vegan. Then you'll need some salt and vanilla for extra flavor and that's it!

To thin caramel, just add some cream or water over heat. Melt caramel loaves in the oven. You can also add corn syrup or lemon juice to caramel sauces to prevent them from crystallizing. It's also a good idea to know how to make caramel in the first place!

Grainy caramel is caused by crystallization, which is easy to avoid (and can also be fixed). Caramel becomes grainy when the sugars crystallize, a process that happens when the melted sugar splashes up onto the cold sides of the pan. It loses its moisture and turns back into a sugar crystal.

Is caramel vegan? Because caramel is essentially just sugar, in its purest form, it is vegan. However, it is often mixed with dairy cream, butter, or milk, which is why it's important to always check the back of store-bought caramel candy.

Wet caramel is made by combining sugar and a liquid and cooking them together, while dry caramel is made from just sugar, heated in a dry pan until it liquefies and browns.

The main ingredient in caramel is sugar. However, depending on the recipe you use, you may have to incorporate butter, heavy cream, water, or corn syrup as additional ingredients. High-quality, real caramel is always made with three basic ingredients and those are sugar, heavy cream, and butter.

Caramel can be produced in so many forms such as, sauce, a chewy candy, or a hard candy because of how much of an ingredient is added and the temperature it is being prepared at.

The only vegan sauce option is the mocha sauce — all the other sauces are made with dairy. There is a difference between the caramel sauce and syrup — while the sauce (aka drizzle) has animal ingredients, the syrup does not.

The water evaporates, leaving sugar crystals behind. If even one sugar crystal falls back into the pan of cooking caramel, it starts a chain reaction of sugar crystals and the entire pan will harden. The result? Gross, grainy caramel that is unusable in most recipes.

Why did my caramel seize when I added cream? ›

Why Did My Caramel Seize? If too many bits of sugar get stuck to the side of the pan, they will harden and can cause the caramel to seize or become gritty or grainy when you add in the butter and/or the cream.

This is especially likely to occur if there are sugar crystals left on the sides of the pan or if you stir the sauce while it's cooling. Evaporation: Caramel sauce contains water, either from the initial sugar-water mixture or from added cream or butter.

How do you make Vegan Caramel Sauce? Add 1 cup of coconut cream, 3/4 cup brown sugar and 1 tablespoon cornstarch to a small pot or pan. NOTE: I buy coconut cream for this recipe, but you can also use full fat coconut milk. Simply scoop out all the white, thick parts until you have a cup.

However, not all Starbucks syrups and sauces are dairy-free, and it can be confusing. Case in point: the caramel syrup is vegan but the caramel sauce is not. Here is everything you need to know about these flavor-enhancers so you can order with confidence the next time you stroll up to a Starbucks.