Caramel Sauce

I am so excited about this caramel sauce recipe.  Earlier in the summer I had tried two separate recipes, but both failed.  One was Kelly's recipe, and while I'm sure it would have been good had I followed the directions, it still tasted a little too brown-sugary for me.  The other used corn syrup, which I didn't much like either.  The favorite one came from Cook's Illustrated (of course, right?) and is a winner in my book!  It's a bit more complicated than others I have tried, but it's worth it, and if you follow the directions to a T, it should work out just fine.

Salted Caramel Sauce

Ingredients:
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 t vanilla
2 T cold, unsalted butter
1 t fleur de sel (or sea salt)

Add water to saucepan and add in 2 cups sugar.  Cover and bring to a boil.  Once it is boiling, uncover and insert a candy thermometer.  Continue cooking until the mixture starts to have some color and reaches 300 degrees F, about 15 minutes.  Reduce heat to medium and cook another five minutes, until the color becomes amber and registers 350 degrees.  Meanwhile, pour the cream in a small saucepan, add the vanilla, and bring to a simmer.  Once the sugar mixture is ready, take it off the heat, and add in 1/4 cup of the cream/vanilla mixture.  It will bubble like mad!  Once it subsides, add in the rest of the cream, stir.  Add in butter and salt, whisk to incorporate.  Get ready to be whisked away to caramel heaven!