This is the first part of a two-part post, but believe me, this peanut butter sauce can stand on its own.
Caramel sauces like this are about as close as my kitchen gets to chemistry class. For caramel, you actually get to see the reactions taking place that turn an everyday ho-hum ingredient – white sugar – into a rich, delicious candy.
First, you melt sugar and then you cook it until it turns to caramel. Then you add a cold liquid, and the caramel goes from oozy and melty to sputtering and hard in a flash. Then you wait, ever so patiently, for those hard chunks of caramel to melt back into the liquid. Of course, you could stop here – you’d have a delicious basic dairy caramel – but this recipe is about peanut butter, so now you stir in several blobs of it. Upon tasting the original recipe, I decided that it needed even more peanut butter flavor and doubled the amount. Bing to the go.
You can serve this sauce warm over any kind of ice cream or dessert you fancy, or you can wait for part two – coming in a few days! (PS: part two will leave leftover sauce.)
It looks just like peanut butter, but it's so much more... if that's even possible.
Peanut Butter Caramel Sauce
Adapted from Epicurious
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
2/3 cup creamy peanut butter*
In a dry heavy saucepan over medium heat, cook the sugar without stirring until it begins to melt. Continue cooking, stirring with a fork, until entirely melted. Cook until a deep golden caramel, swirling the pan occasionally.
Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the cream. The caramel will hiss, bubble and steam, and will form hard lumps. It’s ok. Return the pan to the burner, turn it down to low, and simmer, stirring, until all of the caramel has dissolved, anywhere from 15-30 minutes. Stir in the peanut butter until entirely incorporated, then remove from heat.
Store the sauce in the fridge in an airtight container. It will harden, so you will need to reheat it to re-saucify it. You can do this on the stove or in the microwave, using 30 second bursts.
*While researching peanut butter sauce recipes, I noticed that several made a point of NOT using natural peanut butters (the kind you have to stir). Against my normal tendency, I bought a small jar of Jif for this recipe, and the resulting sauce was silky smooth. I have an inkling that a sauce made with natural peanut butter might be too grainy, or the oils might not incorporate in the same way – so you are on your own if that’s the route you choose.
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yowza! Just made this PB Sauce to go with some chocolate ice cream to bring to a friend’s house tonight. I think I’ll be the heroine of the evening- thanks for sharing!
P.S. Since some kiddos will be consuming, I only did half the sugar. And since some New Years Resolutionists (made that word up) will be there I used half and half instead of heavy cream…