Warm Salted Caramel Sauce with Orange Blossom

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Homemade salted caramel sauce is simple to make–mine includes a whisper of orange blossom water, so delicious with the caramel flavor. Serve the caramel sauce with sliced apples and more sea salt to garnish. It’s also wonderful over ice cream, apple pie, apple cake, banana bread, and anywhere else you like your caramel.

Warm Salted Caramel Sauce with Orange Blossom Water, Maureen Abood

The dinner side of my stomach is full.

But the dessert side is empty.

Of the many, many (and I mean countless) funny things my nieces and nephews say, this one is taking rank as the most often repeated. It’s just so funny, because it’s so spot-on true.

You eat, and at a point you just cannot, will not take even one more bite of the sandwich/coosa/kibbeh/hushweh/whateveritis.

And yet at the thought of dessert, the whole situation changes. There’s plenty of room for a bite (or in my case, a whole plate) of something sweet.

Apples fall 12-2 POST

There is probably something very wrong with me (okay, there is) that as an aunt, I can’t wait to get dessert into the kids. I do focus on the food, but then there’s a point, the moment I’ve been waiting for all through dinner, where I want and I need to say: want something sweet? Perhaps it’s selfish, because of course nobody should eat alone. My dad said so all the time.

I recently asked my nephew if he had room for dessert. No, not really, he said. I tried to hide my disappointment. You suuuuure? I asked. You sure the dessert part of your stomach isn’t a little empty? I mean, I know the dinner side is full, but the dessert side might need a little something.

No, he said. Not really.

Huh. Okay.

I waited a reasonable amount of time, then pulled out the caramel sauce I’d been experimenting with and sliced up some apples. Come on in here!, I shouted to the house. John came padding in. He didn’t look in the mood for dessert at all, so I asked him would he taste-test this caramel I’m working on for my blog.

Apples with Warm Caramel Sauce, Maureen Abood


You
MADE that? His eyes got big. So did mine.

Go ahead, take a dip, I said. I assured him this would be nothing at all like the failed attempt at caramel apples we had under my own tutelage last year; we remember it often (I’ve given up the ghost on that one and just buy them; our local candy shop makes them far better than I can).

He dipped, with just a light coating of caramel on his apple. About half as much as I scoop up on my own. He takes a big bite and says hey, that’s really good. I puff up with pride of his palate when he notes there’s a flavor in there he’s tasted somewhere else.

I hold the bottle of orange blossom water under his nose. NO, he’s certain it’s not that at all.

I ask how he likes the caramel and he says it’s great. He likes how thick it is, and the salt. They’re gonna love it, he assures me. Then he pads back to the other room and I see he’s eaten just that one bite of apple with caramel, and nothing more.

I guess he meant it when he said no to dessert, darn it. Kids these days (can you see me? I’m shaking my head at the futility of it all). They just need to take a lesson from their Uncle Dan, who I watched down half the jar of caramel with just a couple of slices of apple in the time it took John to taste test one bite. Now that children, that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout, the dessert side empty.

Warm Salted Caramel Sauce with Apples, Maureen Abood
Warm salted caramel sauce with orange blossom, with a plate of apples and salt
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Orange Blossom Caramel Sauce with Sea Salt

By Maureen Abood
Serve the sauce with sliced apples and more sea salt to garnish. It’s also delicious over ice cream, apple pie, apple cake, banana bread, and anywhere else you like your caramel. The orange blossom water is there just as a whisper, a wonderful backdrop to the caramel.
Cook: 15 minutes
Servings: 6

Ingredients 

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 3/4 teaspoon Maldon or other sea salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon orange blossom water

Instructions 

  • In a 3- or 4 quart saucepan, combine the sugar and water. (The pot seems too large for this but it’s needed to contain the bubbling when the cream is added later)
  • Without stirring again, heat the sugar and water to boiling over medium high heat. Watch closely until the mixture becomes deep amber, about 12 minutes.
  • Remove the pan from the heat and carefully whisk in the heavy cream. The mixture will bubble up and spit.
  • Return to the heat, whisking until the cream is fully incorporated. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter, salt, and orange blossom water. Taste and stir in more salt if needed, garnishing with a few salt flakes as well.

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Additional Info

Author: Maureen Abood
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Servings: 6
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15 Comments

  1. Greetings Maureen!

    I made this over the weekend. It was such a hit! I’m already thinking about different ways to use this caramel sauce, if it will last. Carmel coffee anyone? Over my apple cake for Thanksgiving. It doesn’t get rock hard when refrigerated, either. Good job!

    Pat

    1. Interesting question–flower waters are made in a special distillation process where the petals are infused in the water (not alcohol, as in an extract).

  2. Maureen,

    Many years ago a friend of the family brought me (from Lebanon) a bottle of Fig Syrup. Do you have an authentic recipe how to make Fig Syrup? Any help is appreciated.

    Love your recipes and your webpages. THANK YOU!

    Anis

  3. maureen,
    i, too, enjoy your blog so very much, the pictures, recipes, culture and comments others’ post; their memories evoke warm remembrances of my own. i love reading their stories and names, so many of which bring back faces of the past, different people, same names!