Coconut Caramel Sauce Recipe (Vegan Caramel) - The Yummy Bowl (2024)

FAQs

What is vegan caramel made of? ›

The base for this 5-ingredient caramel is coconut cream, dates, and arrowroot starch, which are blended until creamy and smooth. This makes up the liquid ingredients, which are added to a bit of coconut sugar and cooked until glossy and just bubbly.

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.

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.

U need to add a very small amount of water at the beginning and cook it down with the sugar and just wait patience is key.

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.

Coconut Cream vs Coconut Milk

Compared to normal coconut milk, coconut cream has a much higher fat content, containing around 19-22% fat. Coconut cream still retains the delicious coconut flavor that coconut milk has, but is much thicker as it is essentially coconut milk with less water.

Caramel Frappuccino

Note: you may notice the Starbucks menu offers a Caramel Frappuccino and a Caramel Ribbon Frappuccino; the latter is not vegan as it includes a dairy-based Dark Caramel Sauce in the mix.

Most of the time, people cook caramel by heating up regular or brown sugar until it turns into a smooth and creamy substance. However, you can also make caramel out of sweetened condensed milk, creating the same great sauce with a unique, extra-sweet kick.

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.

To thicken a caramel sauce, use one tablespoon of cornstarch or tapioca starch (sometimes known as tapioca flour) and one tablespoon of water per cup of caramel. Then simmer the caramel, stirring it constantly with a wooden spoon until it becomes thick.

Why do you put butter in caramel sauce? ›

Some form of dairy — typically butter and/or heavy cream — is usually added to the mixture at either the beginning or the end of cooking. This addition makes the caramel richer, thicker, and lighter in color, lending more viscosity and rounder flavor.

The temperature of the caramel can rise so rapidly that it is hard to keep it in the desired temperature range, shown above. As a result, the caramel could burn and taste bitter.

If your caramel becomes gritty or grainy, the sugar probably crystallized. If the melting sugar splashes up onto the sides of the pan, it quickly loses its moisture content and forms back into crystals. That can set off a chain reaction that can cause caramel to seize up, ruining the entire batch.

This recipe today is the dry caramel version which means sugar melts over direct heat in a dry saucepan as opposed to dissolving sugar first in water to create a syrup before caramelizing. This method seems daunting as the sugar clumps initially, but then as it gets hot enough it will all melt into an amber syrup.

In a medium saucepan, combine the brown sugar, vegan butter, salt and coconut milk. Bring to a simmer over low heat, whisking constantly. Once the caramel is simmering, cook until slightly thickened, about 8-10 minutes.

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.

Most homemade caramel sauces contain heavy cream, so no. A simple caramel sauce will most likely contain sugar, water, heavy cream and butter. As for caramel sauce in a bottle, it will most likely have milk included.