Wild Thistle Kitchen: Stout Butterscotch Sauce
By • October 22, 2020 0 646
We’ve all had salted caramel sauce. We all love it. But maybe we want something different.
Sometimes you’ll see variations with bourbon or other flavors. I love them all. But have you ever seen stout butterscotch sauce? I hadn’t. Until I created it!
Typically, dark beers are not my favorite to drink, but I do appreciate the rich, almost coffee flavors in some stouts and have used them in many savory recipes. Although I’m a big fan of a boozy sauce/dessert, the thought to add stout to a sweet recipe had never occurred to me until I got this stout butterscotch sauce in my mind.
I wanted to harness that dark richness into a caramel-type sauce. And to make it even more dark and smoky, I decided to use dark brown sugar (which makes it a butterscotch rather than a caramel). I chose a local stout: Legacy stout from Wort Hog Brewing Company in Warrenton, Virginia. It is so dark, and almost creamy. But what makes it really special and unique is that it’s aged in bourbon barrels. One taste and I knew it was the perfect stout for my sauce.
Come on, let’s make some sauce!
And if you want the best blondies to drizzle this sauce on, try my brown butter blondies. Caramelized white chocolate is optional, but so darn good. Click here for that recipe: Brown Butter Blondies Recipe from Wild Thistle Kitchen
Stout Butterscotch Sauce
Ingredients
12 oz. dark stout beer
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons butter
Instructions
Place stout in medium saucepan over high heat. Make sure your pan is big enough, as the beer will bubble and foam up quite a bit. Bring to a boil and allow to reduce by half. This should take about 10 minutes.
Carefully pour into a heat-safe measuring cup to ensure you have 6 ounces, then pour reduced stout back into saucepan. Add sugar and stir to combine. Cook on high for about 10 more minutes without stirring until thick and syrupy and the bubbles become larger.
Add cream and stir. Continue cooking for about 10 minutes on medium-high heat. Remove from heat and add vanilla, salt and butter. Stir until all butter is melted and combined. Transfer to glass jar and allow to cool to room temperature before stashing in fridge.
Serve over ice cream, use as a dip for fruits and pretzels, drizzle over brownies or blondies. I hope you love it! Let me know if you make it by tagging me on Instagram @wild.thistle.kitchen
Stout butterscotch sauce. Photo by Anita Parris Soule. Courtesy Wild Thistle Kitchen.
