Black Chocolate Caramel Sauce
My caramel sauce is a beautiful deep black color just from using black cocoa powder. This gives it a unique chocolate flavor that tastes like super chocolatey Oreos and is amazing paired with the sweet and slightly salty caramel. It’s got the texture of a thick honey, which is perfect for drizzling on cakes and other desserts.
In the photo above, I’ve added it along with some cream cheese frosting in between the cake layers, which is a black cocoa chiffon. I then frosted the cake with my black buttercream and drizzled the black chocolate caramel sauce on the top and sides.
In this post I will teach you how to make my caramel sauce using the dry method.
What is the difference between wet and dry caramel methods?
Generally, there are two ways to make caramel. The wet method combines both water and white granulated sugar in a small saucepan and heated until tan and caramelized. In the dry method, the sugar is poured into the saucepan without water and heated until caramelized.
When you want to make a sugar syrup, typically, you use a wet method. That’s because you will need some residual water in the final syrup. These are your syrups that are between the thread up to the hard crack stage.
When you want to make a caramel, you can use either method, but if you use the wet method, you are evaporating all the water. This is because have to heat the sugar to above 338°F/170°C to achieve proper caramelization.
I use the dry method most of the time when making a caramel sauce because I find it is more efficient and straightforward.
One detail that seems to be the most confusing is whether or not to stir.
In the wet method, you stir to dissolve the sugar, but once your sugar syrup reaches a boil, you stop. This prevents crystallization.
In the dry method, constant stirring is required to prevent and dissolve the clumps of sugar that may appear.
Regardless of which method you choose, it's always good to have what's called a doctoring agent, or an ingredient added to sugar that prevents crystallization. So, let's talk about ingredients.
What ingredients do you need for this Black Caramel Sauce?
White granulated sugar is the backbone of caramel sauce. It’s the sweet taste and, depending on how long you cook it, provides the most amazing depth of sugary flavor when heated to high temperatures. Use brown sugar, and you’ll have butterscotch.
Lemon juice or apple cider vinegar is a source of acid (called citric acid in lemons or acetic acid in vinegar) and is used to prevent crystallization during the sugar-melting process. In caramel making, that’s when the sugar develops crystal sheets throughout, creating an unpleasantly grainy caramel sauce in the end.
It does this by performing a reaction called “inversion”, which is really just chopping bigger sugar (sucrose) molecules into two smaller parts (fructose and glucose). These smaller sugars mess up the precise arrangement of bigger sugars needed for crystallization to occur. When making caramel, you don’t need too much acid, just a tiny amount, which gets rubbed into the sugar before it starts melting.
Heavy cream provides moisture, flavor, and fats. Most of the water is evaporated due to the high temperature of the sugar, but a little is left behind along with milk proteins and milk fats for a bit of texture and flavor. This ingredient ensures you have a liquid caramel sauce rather than one that sets up crackly hard.
Be sure to use warmed heavy cream. Adding a cold liquid to a hot sugar syrup will instantly solidify the sugar. It’s reversible by gentle heating, though, so if you do happen to have a large sugary mass on your hands, just place the pan back on the heat source and stir until the sugar has liquefied.
Black cocoa powder gives this sauce a deep brown-black color and chocolate flavor. This variation of cocoa powder is super alkalized, which is a chemical process that changes the color, pH, flavor, and solubility of natural (light brown) cocoa. It’s got a very unique flavor and is what is used in Oreo cookies. You could even use a Dutch-processed cocoa here for a dark chocolate caramel sauce but you'll need black cocoa for the deepest color and Oreo flavor. It's hard to source in store so I buy mine on Amazon (you can see it here.)
Unsalted butter gives the caramel a buttery flavor but also functions as a structural ingredient. It’s added when the caramel sauce is still hot, which melts the butterfat. As the caramel sauce cools, the butterfat solidifies very slightly, giving the sauce a soft, gooey, and slightly fatty consistency. This helps with spreading onto cakes and other things as it won’t stick to your utensils because of all the fat.
Salt is a flavor enhancer and is great in caramel sauce. Unsalted caramel sauce will taste very one-note and overly sweet. If you add some salt, the sweetness will decrease a bit, and the caramel flavors will taste more well-rounded. If you prefer a salted caramel, try to use flaky sea salt at the very end of the heating process so it won’t dissolve. As you eat the sauce, you have these crystal bits of salt throughout. If you prefer a smooth sauce, use finely granulated salt and add it while the sauce is still hot so it dissolves more readily.
Step by step:
I have provided two yields in the recipe below. In the pictures below, I’m going to be showing the 2 cup method, where I incrementally add and melt the sugar, but the one cup method will be similar in that you just add the sugar in one go and stir until melted. I am using a 2-quart saucepan.
Step 1: Set up your ingredients.
Warm the cream up to room temperature, cut the butter into chunks, and sift the cocoa powder.
Step 2: Add the acid to the sugar.
Heat your pan up to medium-high. Meanwhile, add the lemon juice or vinegar to a bowl of sugar (2a). Rub the acid in with your fingers or spatula (2b).
Step 3: Melt sugar incrementally.
To your hot saucepan, add enough sugar to cover the saucepan by a few millimeters (no need to be precise here, just eyeball it.) (3a) Stir constantly with a wooden spatula until the sugar has melted and is starting to caramelize. Don’t worry about the clumps (3b).
Sprinkle more sugar atop the caramelized sugar (3c), and stir the sugar in (3d). Once all that sugar has melted, repeat the process and keep doing this until all the sugar has been added.
Keep stirring (3e) until the mixture is smooth and the color is amber (3f).
Step 4: Add heavy cream to melted sugar.
Turn off the heat and add the warmed cream (4a). You may see the sugar instantly solidify due to the temperature difference, but keep stirring until smooth (4b). Also, be careful as this step releases a burst of steam very quickly.
Step 5: Add black cocoa powder.
Pour in the sifted black cocoa powder and use a whisk or spatula to distribute.
Step 6: Add butter.
Add the unsalted butter (6a) and a pinch of salt (6b). Stir until all the butter has melted and give it a taste. Add more salt if needed.
Step 7: Pour into a glass container.
Carefully pour the hot syrup into a glass container (7a). It will initially be thin but as it cools will have the consistency of a thick honey (7b). Cool to room temperature before using and store leftovers in the fridge for at least a month or two.
Video
Read this before you begin
Measure by weight, if possible.
Measuring by weight is the best way for you to replicate my recipes. I develop recipes using ingredients (even liquids) measured in grams, which is why you see them listed first in the recipe cards. For measurements under 5 grams, I will typically only list the volumetric measurements (teaspoons, etc.), as most home scales are not precise for such small weights.
In most cases, I have converted grams to volumetric measurements (aka US customary units) for bakers who prefer this method. However, the measurements are not as precise and may have awkward proportions. The recipes should still work, but for the ultimate precision, try to use weight.
This is the OXO scale I use daily. I also purchased this budget version of a good scale, which I keep at my Mom’s house for baking. If you’re interested in other tools I use for my baking, I’ve compiled a list here.
Use room temperature ingredients.
All my ingredients should be used at room temperature, or 65-75 °F/18-24 °C. I will always indicate if you need something outside this range. If no details are given, room temperature is the default.
Pay attention to the ingredient descriptions.
I try not to be brand-specific, but I will always note an interesting result from a type of ingredient, be it negative or positive.
A specific note regarding salt: I use Diamond Crystal Kosher salt for everything on this site except for frostings. In frostings, you want the salt to dissolve more easily, and kosher salt tends to leave granules behind. If you substitute table salt (more finely granulated) for recipes that list kosher salt, you must use half the volume indicated in my recipes.
Substitutions are hard.
That’s not to say they’re impossible, though. For instance, in many cases, substituting reduced fat for whole milk (and thus reducing fat by less than 2%) will probably be fine. Using applesauce for oil or even Greek yogurt when sour cream is listed will definitely alter the fat content and adversely affect the crumb texture and density of the cake.
I experiment for hours to get these recipes to work for us. First, try to make them as written or use one of my tested substitutions, which I often dedicate a section to. Then, if necessary, you can make modifications afterward. Even then I would be pretty cautious, as substitutions are one of the hardest things to investigate in recipe development.
Read all the recipe instructions before beginning.
I’m in the “Pre-read the Chapter before Class Lecture” club... and I invite you to join! Baking new recipes can be intimidating, so let’s set you up for success. I want you to think about timeframes. Most fillings and frostings can be made ahead of time, and give you an extra day for mental space. Also, as you become a more proficient baker, you can anticipate and recognize steps. (“Oh, this has a meringue step, so I’ll need an extra clean bowl…” etc.) Ensure you go down the ingredient list and have everything at the right temperature.
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Black Chocolate Caramel Sauce
- ¾ cup (150g) white granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon lemon juice (strained) or vinegar
- ½ cup (120g) heavy cream (warmed slightly)
- 4 tablespoons (56g) unsalted butter, sliced into 1 TB chunks (any temp is fine)
- 1 ½ tablespoons black cocoa*, sifted to remove clumps
- ½ -1 teaspoon fine or kosher salt
- ¾ cup (150g) white granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon lemon juice (strained) or vinegar
- ½ cup (120g) heavy cream (warmed slightly)
- 4 tablespoons (56g) unsalted butter, sliced into 1 TB chunks (any temp is fine)
- 1 ½ tablespoons black cocoa*, sifted to remove clumps
- ½ -1 teaspoon fine or kosher salt
- 1 ½ cups (300g) white granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon lemon juice (strained) or vinegar
- 1 cup (240g) heavy cream (warmed slightly)
- ½ cup (113g) unsalted butter, sliced into 1 TB chunks (any temp is fine)
- 3 tablespoons black cocoa*, sifted to remove clumps
- ½ -1 teaspoon fine or kosher salt
- Set up your ingredients. Warm the heavy cream up to at least room temp (you can use a microwave), cut the butter into chunks, and sift the black cocoa into a small bowl.
For the 1 cup recipe (sugar melted all at once):
- Add the acid to the sugar.
Heat the saucepan on medium-high. While the pan is heating, add the sugar to a small bowl and add the lemon juice or vinegar. Rub the acid in with your fingers or a spatula. - Melt sugar all at once.
Add all the sugar to the hot pan and stir constantly with either a wooden spoon or a silicone spatula. At first, it will seem like you’re just stirring around dry sugar crystals, but you are distributing the heat throughout. Then, the sugar will first look a little wet directly where it touches the pan, then turn clear, and then start to turn tan.
Now, as you stir, you may see chunks here or there. Don’t worry; just keep stirring, and the chunks will dissolve.
The sugar will turn bitter as it gets dark, and also, continue cooking even when you remove it from the heat since the pan will still be hot, so remove the pan from heat once the sugar is uniformly melted and a light amber/honey color. Continue with step 4 down below.
For the 2-cup recipe (sugar melted incrementally to reduce clumping):
- Add the acid to the sugar.
Heat the saucepan on medium-high. Meanwhile, while your pan is heating up, place your sugar in a bowl, add the citrus juice or vinegar, and rub it into the sugar for a bit with your fingers or a spatula. - Melt sugar incrementally.
Add enough sugar to create a thin layer (about 1/4 inch or 6mm) of sugar on a thick-bottomed saucepan. Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly with either a wooden spoon or a silicone spatula.
At first, it will seem like you’re just stirring around dry sugar crystals, but you are distributing the heat throughout. Then, the sugar will first look a little wet directly where it touches the pan, then turn clear. Now sprinkle on some more sugar. It doesn’t have to be precise, but enough so that when you stir, the sugar easily combines, and everything gets a little wet.
Once that is somewhat dissolved, add more sugar. Repeat this until all the sugar is added.
Now, as you stir, you may see chunks here or there. Don’t worry; just keep stirring, and the chunks will dissolve.
The sugar will turn bitter as it gets dark, and also, continue cooking even when you remove it from the heat since the pan will still be hot, so remove the pan from heat once the sugar is uniformly melted and a light amber/honey color. Continue with step 4 down below.
- Add heavy cream to melted sugar.
Carefully and slowly pour in the warm, heavy cream while stirring constantly with the spatula. It will produce a good amount of steam, so be careful. It may be thick or lumpy when you do this, but don’t worry; just keep stirring, and it will eventually mix. If you find that it forms a big sugary mass even after adding all the cream and stirring, place the pan back on the heat source and cook on medium heat while stirring. This will increase the temperature of the sugar so that it can combine with the heavy cream more easily. - Add black cocoa powder.
Pour in the sifted black cocoa powder and use a whisk or spatula to distribute. - Add butter.
Add the unsalted butter and a pinch of salt. Stir until all the butter has melted and give it a taste. Add more salt if needed. - Pour into a glass container.
The mixture will still be hot, so be careful when adding to your glass container. Allow the sauce to cool at room temperature before using. The caramel will seem a bit runny at this point but will thicken slightly as it cools, which will have the consistency of a thick honey. If want it thinner and runnier, you can warm it and add a splash of water or milk to thin it out.
To store, you can keep this in the fridge for at least a month. The high sugar content and low water content usually keep it safe for at least that long.
Recipe Card - Adriana's Notes
*Black cocoa powder is an alkalized version of natural cocoa powder, which in addition to raising the pH, turns the cocoa black. It has a smoky, mellow, and sometimes alkaline flavor reminiscent of Oreo cookies. It’s hard to source in stores, so I buy mine online. (I get it on Amazon, here.)
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