Homemade caramel sauce

Yay! summer's here. And I'm still teaching, but I will have more time to post recipes that I made centuries ago and I just didn't have time to write about. Remember the ice cream recipes I posted... well, kind of long ago, but not really. Well, this caramel sauce goes perfect with it. 

But let's start by the summer story. What are you guys up to this summer? I have a giant list of books to read, just like last summer. So far I'm down 3 out of 15 on the list. I've definitely fallen in love with Paul Auster, just a bit more than I had so far. But I'm also working on the classics. The American ones. I wonder why noone ever told me that 'The catcher in the rye' was such a wonderful book. 

What are you guys reading this summer? Are you going on vacation? One of my old friends from Boston is visiting me soon. I can't wait for him to be here so we can eat our way through Portland. But I have promised him tons of ice cream, so I better start working on filling the freezer with new recipes. To pair with it, this amazing caramel sauce.

I bet you've read all over the internet how terribly hard it is to make caramel sauce. Not true! It's a matter of patience and you can master it quite easily. Plus, it only has 3 ingredients!

Homemade caramel sauce

1 1/2 cups water

1 cup sugar

1 cup heavy cream 

Pour the water and sugar in a pot and heat at medium heat until it boils. DO NOT STIR. This is very important. If you stir, you'll evaporate the water before the sugar cooks and will end up with a white goopy paste that doesn't look like caramel. You are aiming to slowly caramelize the sugar (Grignard reaction, for the nerds out there). Let the water evaporate and the sugar cook and do not walk away from it or it'll burn. You can do this without adding water, but this way, the process is slower and the risk of burning it is lower. Once the sugar acquires an amber color, it is ready for you to pour the heavy cream. Now, there's very many tones of amber, you're aiming for something that looks like honey. Once you get to this stage, remove the pot from the stove and add the heavy cream. Do not panic if all the sudden you have a solid blob of caramel surrounded by liquid. And be careful not to splash yourselves with hot caramel. Once you've added the heavy cream, put the pot back in the stove and stir with a whisk until you have an homogeneous mixture. Basically, until the cooked sugar dissolves. You can cook the sauce as little or as much as you want, depending on how thick you want it. Take in account that it'll become thicker when it cools down. Pour in jars and store in the fridge for 2 weeks or the freezer for months (don't worry, it won't last that long).