Caramel Heaven.

Okay, seeing as how subtlety isn’t really one of my strong points and I know no other way to say this, I will come out and just say it.

You. Have. To. Make. This.

If you’ve never had ice cream so good each brain-numbling spoonful completely blows your mind- heck, even if you have- you have to make this.

I know the recipe looks long and complicated but all it really says is that you make caramel over the stove, split it into half and make caramel sauce (with the addition of some cream) with one portion and caramel ice cream with the other. It’s as simple as that and you’ll be handsomely rewarded, I promise.

As if tasting like heaven wasn’t enough, the corn syrup in the caramel prevents the ice cream from freezing too hard. So even if you make this with elbow grease like I did (due to a- hopefully temporary- misplaced ice cream paddle), the ice cream will have the most perfect scoopable texture straight out of the freezer- making it the most perfect ice cream ever in my books.

To say every spoonful of this smooth, creamy caramel ice cream with thick, decadent caramel sauce had me swooning would be an understatement. It really was the perfect treat to cool down with on a hot, sunny day.

And fortunately for me, I seem to be the only caramel fan in the house- not that I have any plans of sharing.

Caramel Gelato [adapted from Sherry Yard's The Secrets of Baking]

Ingredients
1/4 cup water
1 cup + 2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp corn syrup
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cups whole milk
3 egg yolks
Generous pinch of sea salt

1. Combine the water, 1 cup of sugar and corn syrup in a medium saucepan over medium high. Bring the mixture to a boil and heat the mixture till it hits 360F on a candy thermometer. Remove the pan from heat.
2. To make the caramel sauce Heat 1/4 cup of cream in a saucepan till warm. Pour half the caramel in and whisk till combined. Remove from heat and let it cool completely- it will thicken as it cools.
3. To make caramel ice cream Whisk the eggs and 2 tbsp of sugar together in a large bowl. Heat the milk, remaining 1/2 cup of cream and salt in a saucepan over medium heat till warm. Carefully pour half the milk mixture into the remaining caramel. Stir to combine well and pour the mixture back into the milk mixture.
4. Bring the caramel mixture to a boil and slowly pour it into the egg mixture, whisking well constantly. Return the mixture to the saucepan and over medium heat, stir the mixture constantly till it becomes thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
5. Strain the mixture into a bowl and let cool completely before refrigerating for at least 4 hours. Churn with an ice cream maker, according to the instructions that came with it. Serve with caramel sauce. Makes half a litre of ice cream