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With minimal ingredients (and no corn syrup) you can whip up rich, velvety-smooth apple cider caramel sauce in just 30 minutes! It’s perfect for dipping apples, drizzling on your favorite breakfast from pancakes to oatmeal, or sweetening your coffee with a little bit of fall flair.
Apple season is one of my favorite times of the year. Not only for the apples, but also for fresh pressed cider! With its sweet, tart, concentrated apple flavor, it tastes like a fresh, crisp fall apple in liquid form.
This year I bought an extremely large jug of cider. After making baked apple doughnuts, apple cinnamon vinaigrette, and drinking hot spiced cider and countless glasses of crisp cold cider, I decided I wanted to try something else. Enter this caramel sauce!
While developing this recipe, I knew I wanted to make a caramel sauce without corn syrup, heavy on the apple flavor, and with a hint of warm spice. I used my 10-minute butterscotch sauce recipe as the base. A couple tweaks later, I ended up with a lovely apple cider syrup with the consistency of butterscotch sauce (but don’t worry if you like thick caramel sauce, this thickens significantly as it sits and even more when chilled).
Are Apple Cider Syrup and Apple Cider Caramel Sauce the Same?
No; they both contain apple cider but they aren’t the same thing.
Apple cider syrup (which is also called apple molasses) only contains apple cider. It’s cooked down to a thick, syrupy consistency, and is a rich brown color. It has a concentrated apple flavor that’s mostly tart and tangy with a hint of sweetness.
On the other hand, apple cider caramel sauce contains other ingredients like butter and cream. It has a complex balance of sweet and tart flavors, and a rich, creamy, velvety-smooth mouthfeel.
How to Use Apple Cider Caramel Sauce
This is one of those recipes that once you make it, you’ll think of about 100 ways to use it! Here are a few ideas to get you going:
- As a dip for sliced apples or other fruit – Caramel dip for apples is classic (especially a tart Granny Smith apple + caramel sauce, yum!), but you could also try this with pears or bananas for dipping. Or if you like the sweet and salty flavor combination, dip pretzels in it!
- Use it as a sweetener for coffee, tea, or specialty drinks – Try it instead of butterscotch syrup on a homemade Butterbeer, or in place of coconut sugar in a dirty chai latte.
- Drizzled on top of ice cream or frozen yogurt – Or go for the gusto and make a brownie ice cream sundae, or an apple cinnamon blondie ice cream sundae.
- Instead of honey or maple syrup – Try it on pancakes, waffles (caramel apple syrup on a pumpkin spice waffle sounds like autumnal bliss!), crepes, oatmeal, etc.
- As a finishing touch for fall desserts – Drizzle a little bit on apple crisp, apple pie, or pumpkin cheesecake right before serving.
- As a deliciously decorative addition to cakes and cupcakes – Try it on caramel apple cake or cheddar caramel Chicago mix cupcakes.
- Along with homemade doughnuts for dipping – Along the lines of churros dipped in dulce de leche, cinnamon sugar baked apple donuts dipped in this sweet apple syrup are amazing.
Ingredients
Breaking It Down
Ingredients Explained
In this section I explain the ingredients and give substitution ideas where applicable. For the full recipe (including the ingredient amounts), see the recipe card below.
- Fresh apple cider – Apple cider is fresh, unfiltered apple juice with an intensely complex sweet/tart apple flavor and apple solids and pulp that make it opaque. Unlike juice, which typically has added sugar and preservatives, apple cider only contains apples.
- Cinnamon stick – Adds subtle warm spiced flavor. If you want a stronger cinnamon flavor, use 2 cinnamon sticks or add up to 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon instead.
- Sugar – When you’re making caramel, sugar not only adds sweetness but helps create the right texture for the sauce.
- Butter – Adds richness, glossiness, and helps create the perfect smooth, pourable consistency.
- Salt – To enhance the flavor of everything else and create a balanced flavor profile.
- Heavy whipping cream – Adds rich flavor and helps create a velvety smooth texture.
- Pure vanilla extract – For subtle flavor and aroma that beautifully plays off the apple flavor.
Instructions
- Add the apple cider, cinnamon stick, sugar, butter, and vanilla to a medium saucepan over medium heat.
- Bring to a boil, and then cook until it’s reduced by about 2/3 (this takes about 22 to 25 minutes).
- Stir in the cream and vanilla.
- Cook until slightly thickened, about 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
Storage and Reheating Tips
- Storage: Once cooled to room temperature, you can store this in a covered glass jar in the fridge for up to 1 month.
- Reheating: This sauce thickens quite a bit after chilling. You can reheat it in a double boiler on the stovetop or in 10-second increments in the microwave, stirring between each increment.
Tips For Success
- You aren’t limited to apple cider here! Try this recipe with other types of fruit cider, such as pear.
- For a more richly spiced flavor, feel free to add more spices. An apple pie spice blend would work well here, or go for a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, and/or clove. Just a word of caution because spices (especially cloves) can be potent: start with less and add more!
- Be careful not to over-cook caramel sauce or you’ll end up with chewy caramel candy. You can tell it’s done cooking when the volume is reduced by about 2/3 and it reaches 225F on a candy thermometer. (PRO TIP: Although it’s helpful if you’re new to making homemade caramel, you really don’t need a candy thermometer here. Instead of temperature, you can go by other factors, such as color and how much the sauce is reduced by.)
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes! You can substitute up to half of the granulated white sugar for light brown sugar in this recipe. If you do so, the resulting apple caramel with have notes of molasses similar to butterscotch syrup.
Yes, apple juice will also work here. If you use apple juice instead of cider, add 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice or 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar. Also, know that the resulting caramel will have a less pronounced apple flavor.
Nope! If you’ve been following my blog for a while now (first of all, thank you, from the bottom of my heart), you might remember a few other cooked sugar recipes I’ve shared, such as butterscotch sauce and chewy gingerbread caramels.
Both of these recipes are made without corn syrup; instead, I add an acid to “invert” the sugar, which breaks sucrose down into fructose and glucose and prevents crystallization. In both of those recipes, I used cream of tartar as the acid. In this caramel recipe, apple cider is acidic, so there’s no need for cream of tartar.
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Apple Cider Caramel Sauce Recipe
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Ingredients
- 2 cups fresh apple cider
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 cup granulated white sugar
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Add the apple cider, cinnamon stick, sugar, butter, and vanilla to a medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, and then cook until it's reduced by about 2/3 (this takes about 22 to 25 minutes). If you have a candy thermometer, it should reach about 225F.
- Stir in the cream and vanilla and cook until slightly thickened, about 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
Video
Notes
- How to Tell When It’s Done: The volume should be reduced by about 2/3 and it should reach 225F on a candy thermometer. This takes about 22 to 25 minutes, but the exact time will vary based on multiple factors, including the weather.
- Recipe Yield and Serving Size: This recipe makes about 1 1/4 cups of caramel, or 10 (2-tablespoon) servings.
- Thickness: Be careful not to over-cook this because it thickens significantly as it cools.
- Storage: Once cooled to room temperature, you can store this in a covered glass jar in the fridge for up to 1 month.
- Reheating: This sauce thickens quite a bit after chilling. You can reheat it in a double boiler on the stovetop or in 10-second increments in the microwave, stirring between each increment.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is automatically calculated and should be used as an approximate.
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I’m the writer, recipe developer, photographer, and food stylist behind this blog. I love finding the human connection through something we all do every day: eat! Food is a common ground that we can all relate to, and our tables tell a story. It’s my goal to inspire you to get in the kitchen, try something new, and find a favorite you didn’t know you had.
Free Bonus
I’m assuming that the cinnamon stick is cooked along with the other ingredients in step 1. At what point do you remove it? I can’t wait to try this!
Kathy, Yes, the cinnamon stick gets added in step 1 (I updated the recipe), and I remove it after step 2 when it’s finished cooking. I hope you enjoy it! :)