Homemade Pumpkin Caramel Sauce

I am very excited khổng lồ bring you this recipe for spiced pumpkin caramel sauce, friends.With only a handful of ingredients, you can make a rich & complex sauce that is lovely poured over ice cream or layered onto a cheesecake. You can also use it to lớn flavor your coffee for a homemade pumpkin spice latte. If you love the flavor of pumpkin spice, you may also really enjoy my pumpkin spice caramel corn.For ease of browsing, you can find all my dessert sauce recipes in one place. Thanks so much for visiting!

You can view my spiced pumpkin caramel sauce recipe web story here.

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What You"ll Find in This Post Click to view ToC
1Why You Need to lớn Make This Pumpkin Caramel Sauce
2How lớn Make
2.1Ingredients & Substitutions
2.2Procedure
2.3Equipment You May Need
2.4Variations
3Visual How-To
4Tips for Success
5Spiced Pumpkin Caramel Sauce Q và A
6Serving Suggestions
7A chú ý About Measurements
8Questions
9Spiced Pumpkin Caramel Sauce
9.1Ingredients
9.2Instructions
9.3Notes

Why You Need khổng lồ Make This Pumpkin Caramel Sauce

This sauce tastes like fall, y’all.

It’s deeply flavored và rich with pumpkin spice.

You can either use a prepared pumpkin pie spice blend or use the individual spices to make it exactly khổng lồ your liking.

The recipe makes about 1 một nửa cups of sauce, and it’s easily doubled if you need more.

As I always do, I gọi for adding water khổng lồ the sugar before caramelizing. This helps the sugar to lớn dissolve & then caramelize much more evenly than if you only start with dry sugar.

How lớn Make

This is a pretty easy sauce khổng lồ make. I think it took me about 15 minutes, start khổng lồ finish, and that includes measuring the ingredients.

In a nutshell, you’ll:

caramelize your sugarwhisk in cream, spices, và pumpkin pureecook for a few secondsstrain the sauce

And then you’re done.

In the following sections, I’ll go over ingredients and substitutions & walk you through exactly how to lớn make it.

I’ll also try lớn answer frequently asked questions, give you some variation ideas for the sauce, some visual cues so you know what khổng lồ look for, tips for success, và some ways lớn serve your pumpkin caramel that you may not have considered.

Here we go.

Ingredients and Substitutions

Here are the ingredients you’ll need khổng lồ make your own, delicious pumpkin caramel.

sugar: plain granulated sugar. For sweetness & also for caramel flavor & body. I don’t recommend using brown sugar, because it’s hard to tell when it caramelizes. If you want the flavor of brown sugar, địa chỉ cửa hàng about 1 Tablespoon of molasses (not blackstrap) when you showroom the pumpkin puree và spiceswater: Filtered or straight from the tap. You don’t need lớn measure the water. You just need enough lớn get the sugar wet so it melts evenly, about 1/4-1/2 cup. salt: Since pumpkin is a vegetable, it requires a fair amount of salt to lớn really bring out its mellow flavor. The salt also brings out the flavor of the spices và counteracts any bitterness from the caramel, especially if it ends up a bit darker in màu sắc than you had intendedheavy cream: stops the cooking process, mellows the caramel flavor, adds body, và the fat in it helps to carry the flavorpumpkin puree: homemade or canned is fine. Vì not substitute pumpkin pie fillingcinnamon, ginger, và cloves: Use a mixture of these three spices lớn achieve your desired spicing, or just use store-bought pumpkin pie spicevanilla extract: Rounds out all the flavors in the sauce. Not strictly necessary, so if you don’t have any vanilla, your sauce will still be delicious(not pictured) butter: just a touch, and it’s optional. Adds a little shine và a touch more richness

Procedure

Measure out your spices, cream, và pumpkin puree & have them ready khổng lồ go.Add sugar, salt, & water khổng lồ a heavy-bottomed saucepan.Bring it khổng lồ a boil, and place a lid on it to wash down any sugar crystals, about 2 minutes.Remove the lid & watch carefully until the sugar begins lớn turn a pale yellow/orange color. Swirl the pan to promote even cooking.Once the sugar reaches a medium-amber color, remove it from the heat và immediately pour in the cream to stop the cooking. The caramel will bubble up and spatter. Whisk it well to lớn combine the cream with the caramel.Whisk in pumpkin puree and the spices.Bring to lớn a low boil for about a minute.Strain sauce through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl.Stir in vanilla and butter, và pour into a clean jar.

Equipment You May Need

You don’t need much special equipment khổng lồ make this sauce.

I vì recommend using a pan with a stainless steel or white interior. If you use a dark-coated pan, it’s too hard lớn tell what stage the caramel has gotten to, và you’re more likely khổng lồ burn it.

This is the stainless steel pan that I use, & this white ceramic-lined pan is also a good choice.

Otherwise, you’ll need a wooden spoon and/or a good whisk, a fine mesh strainer, & a jar to lớn put your sauce in.

Variations

If you don’t like pumpkin spice, you can use 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, or if you’re a ginger fan, use 1 teaspoon of ginger instead.

Xem thêm:

Stir in 1/2 cup of trắng chocolate chips for a trắng chocolate pumpkin caramel sauce.

If you’d lượt thích less pumpkin flavor, cut the amount of puree khổng lồ 1/4 cup.

You can even leave the pumpkin out entirely for a pumpkin spice caramel sauce, sans vegetables. In that case, I would increase the heavy cream to 3/4 cup from một nửa cup.

Visual How-To

Here are a couple of visual cues so you know what to look for when you’re making this recipe.

I hope you find them helpful.

Here, you can see the sugar starting to caramelize. If you want a sweeter sauce, you can pour in the cream at about this stage or maybe a little darker.

In this clip, this is the màu sắc I take my caramel to. The resulting sauce has a bit of a bitter edge, and is less sweet & more complex than a sauce made at a lighter caramel stage.

If you are planning lớn serve this sauce with ice cream, I recommend taking it khổng lồ this point. The slight bitterness is a nice counterpoint to lớn sweet, cold ice cream.

Also, lưu ý how the caramel và cream boil up vigorously. That’s why I recommend using a pan that is much larger than you think you’ll need.

At this point, I’m stirring in the pumpkin puree. The pot is off the heat, and you’ll notice it is still boiling.

This is due, in part, lớn the heavy bottom of the saucepan retaining heat.

If you are not used khổng lồ making caramel, definitely err on the side of lighter caramel to lớn give you time to stir in the cream và pumpkin before your caramel gets darker than you’d like it khổng lồ be.

Here is what my sauce looked lượt thích as I was just finishing whisking in the pumpkin puree.

A whisk is definitely a better tool than a spatula for doing this job.

The only things left to vì at this point are to lớn strain the sauce and địa chỉ the vanilla & butter. Tada!

Tips for Success

When working with caramel, always use a pot that is much larger than you think you need. This will leave plenty of room for when the mixture inevitably boils up when you showroom the cream. It’s much safer khổng lồ use a pot that’s a little too big than to lớn use one that is too small.

Add the salt khổng lồ the sugar và water at the beginning of cooking. The salt will not affect the way your sugar caramelizes, & adding it at the beginning ensures that your sauce will be well-seasoned.

For a sweeter, less complex sauce, showroom the cream once the caramel is about the color of honey. For a less-sweet, more complex sauce, showroom the cream once the caramel has reached a medium amber color.