The Fattiest Fat Bomb
Welcome to KetoCook! I have been developing ketogenic recipes like this amazing keto caramel or dulce de leche, since 2010 for my daughter who successfully manages Dravet’s Syndrome (epilepsy) with the ketogenic diet. You will find most of the recipes on this site make 1 serving. This is because her version of the ketogenic diet is so strict, nutritional requirements are met to the gram using a software program called the KetoDietCalculator. You can find many more recent keto recipes I have developed at the Charlie Foundation.
What makes this recipe different from other “keto” caramel recipes?
Well, this recipe is not based on large quantities of low carb sweetener, in fact you don’t need to use any sweetener at all! Most other “keto” caramel recipes rely on granular sweeteners that contain sugar alcohols, fibers, and fillers. On a medical ketogenic diet, even small quantities of these sweeteners, even erythritol, can be problematic for some individuals. Companies claim that 100% of sugar alcohol or fiber can be subtracted to equal zero net carbs, but it is possible that some of it is still utilized by the body as a carbohydrate, therefore raising blood glucose and lowering ketones. They best way to know is to test on yourself and learn how your body responds to different types of sweeteners. In our case, I still choose to avoid using extra sweeteners and apply this conservative approach to all of my cooking. As a side note, when my daughter began keto therapy in 2009, we were advised to use Saccharin 🙈🙉🙈, and I never felt great about it’s on and off again relationship with the “possible human carcinogen” category. I can’t help having the same suspicions with other non-nutritive sweeteners.
The Recipe
Ketogenic & caramel are not usually two words that go together…EVER! And caramel as a method of serving fat, not sugar? I’m not kidding! This is an amazing replacement for traditional caramel, with the added benefit of it containing essentially ZERO carbohydrate or protein, it is almost 100% fat. If you are looking for the best tasting keto caramel or fat bomb ever, this is it!
Interestingly, this recipe is more similar to dulce de leche than caramel. Traditional caramel is made by melting sugar, while dulce de leche is made by cooking down and caramelizing the portions in milk or other dairy. This recipe is more similar to the latter but with butter added to increase the fat content and keep the protein and carb count low.
This is a “make it and eat it” kind of recipe. It will sit ok at room temperature for a few hours, but will eventually break and separate. If you store it in the fridge, it will harden like butter. You can make candies in silicone molds this way if you wish. You will not be able to re-heat it and return it to a sauce like state after it has hardened. So plan ahead and be ready to cook this on the day you wish to serve it. This would be wonderful drizzled on top of a pumpkin pie or apple crisp…. Hope you enjoy!
Video Instructions Click HERE
Macros for the entire batch (using 40 gram equal parts heavy cream & butter)
- Fat: 49 grams
- Protein: 1 gram
- Net Carbs: 1 gram
- Calories: 447
- Ketogenic Ratio: 21:1
Keto Caramel or Dulce de Leche Printable Recipe
Keto Caramel
Ingredients
- 1 part Unsalted Butter See note below
- 1 part Heavy Cream
- 1 pinch Salt
- Sweetener of Choice
Instructions
- Melt the butter in the pan over LOW heat. The butter will boil and foam. Listen carefully, you will hear the butter boiling. Once the moisture has boiled off, the pan will be very quiet. Once quiet, the carmelization will happen very quickly.
- Continue cooking the butter until the milk solids begin to turn golden brown. It is best to not rush this process because once it starts to turn brown it can quickly go too far and taste burnt.
- Once the milk solids have browned, remove the pan from the heat and stir the cream into the butter. If you are using sweetener, add it along with the cream. The cream will foam and bubble initially but will then stop. Return the pan to medium heat and allow the cream to come to a full boil. The cream and the butter may look separated, but keep stirring! A whisk works well.
- Continue cooking until it has thickened and feels “sticky” (The bubbles will take longer to come to the surface).
- Remove the caramel from the heat, continue to stir until it begins to cool. If you let it sit while it is hot, the butter and cream may separate. Continue to stir it for a few minutes and it will hold together as a thick sauce. You can pour it into candy molds at this point if you wish.
- Enjoy the caramel served warm with your favorite keto dessert! If you cool this in the refigerator, the caramel will become solid and makes great fat bombs.
Notes
- 114 grams (1 stick) butter + 114 grams heavy cream OR
- 1 cup butter + 1 cup heavy cream
Snack Example – 4:1 Ratio
This is a method that you can incorporate into any meal where you would like to serve caramel. When you are calculating a meal, include butter and cream as your fat. For example, I calculated a 4:1 ratio, 146 calorie snack of apples (no skin), butter and cream.
- 12g butter
- 12g 40% heavy cream
- 25.5g apples with no skin
Follow the process above for cooking the caramel. It will go MUCH FASTER with a small amount like this. The caramel will weigh significantly less than 24 grams (12g butter + 12g cream) after cooking. This is because water content has cooked out of both the butter and cream.
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I just made the caramel sauce but instead of regular monkfruit sweetener, I added the brown sugar substitute and at the very end I added a bit of unflavored gelatin powder to thicken it like caramel candies. Thank you sooo much for the recipe, it tastes and looks just like regular caramel!
[…] Caramel fat bomb […]
Can u please convert this to cups, teaspoons, or whatever
I don’t understand parts, grams
I used one stick of salted butter and half cup of heavy cream. Plus four packets of truvia. It was delicious!!
So glad you liked it!
Ohhhh thank you so much!!! Easiest recipe yet!!
Thanks for the recipe! It’s probably one of the easiest and best tasting things I’ve ever made that was keto friendly. Also one of the prettiest! That gorgeous color browning the butter gives is just scrumptious.
will work with stainless steel pan?
YES!! Also, here is a video of me actually making the caramel. http://charliefoundation.org/resources-and-tools/find-recipes-home/desserts-and-sweets/item/1112-caramel-sauce
OMG. So, good. Don’t sell yourself short, this is fabulous. Thank you so much! If they’re not getting it brown, then they’re not browning the butter ahead of time. It took more than a minute for mine to get gooey.
Just made this. Next time ill use unsalted butter. Salt intensifies as butter cooks down. Also i think you have to gain experience with this so you can match the color of the browned butter to the taste. I wanted greater carameling and deeper color. Now i know the color ill need next time! Thanks for this recipe! Going to use the left over carmel as a popcorn topping. With the salt, itll be perfect! Will make it specifically for carmel popcorn!
[…] I combined two existing keto recipes – Ruled.Me’s keto pie crusts, and KetoCook’s caramel sauce. But what about the banana? Banana isn’t low carb, or keto friendly. No, no it isn’t. […]
Hi! I made this last night. While mine didn’t have the color yours did, it definitely tasted like caramel. I added a little nutmeg and a just a little fresh lemon juice. It tastes great! I think I will also use it as a condensed milk. Thank you for this. It will come in handy. Also, mine did not separate when it cooled. I did make them into little candies. Thanks again!
I found that jacking up the price after you add the cream is helpful, it thickens the mix without burning and essentially self stirs. make sure to watch it though, you don’t want it to burn. It will also help with the color issues people are having.
I find jacking up the heat after you add the cream helps. That way you get a steady boil which thickens the mix but doesn’t burn any settled pieces, it will also self mix essentially. When you do jack it up though make sure you watch it carefully.
Hi! This looks good. Just found out that I have a sensitivity to casein. Might try this with gheee but what do u suggest for the cream-possible coconut cream?
I’ve made caramel with coconut cream and it works just fine.
Amazing recipe, so good and so simple! Pinned and shared 🙂 Thank you!
Thanks! So glad it worked well for you!
i just finished making this and it worked perfectly! Using it for a low carb caramel slice.
So glad to hear it! I was thinking about renaming this as “the worlds most finicky caramel!”
I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong. Just as the mix starts to thicken, all of a sudden it foams up, becomes incredibly runny, and it’s almost as if the cream just disappears. I’m continually stirring like mad but to no avail. Any thoughts? If I take it off the heat before this point, no matter how much I stir it still separates.
I’m sorry, I don’t know what is wrong… I’m going to revisit this recipe, possibly with a video tutorial.
I’m having great difficulties in making this recipe, and I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong. Just as the butter and cream mixture begins to thicken over a low heat as I continually stir it, all of a sudden it foams up and it’s almost as if the cream just disappears – it resembles runny melted butter. If I remove it off the heat just before it goes all runny again, no matter how much I stir, it separates. Has anyone else experienced this problem, and if so, what was the solution?
I’m sorry you are having trouble, I believe different varieties of cream are part of the inconsistency problems. I wish I could help more!
I can’t get this to turn out either. It turns out as a batch of oil with little brown crumbly little pieces. I strained out the pieces and added it to the cheesecake yogurt for a caramel flavored yogurt, which was good, but I’d love to be able to figure out how to get this to look like the picture. What brands of cream/butter do you use?
Heyy do you think it could work with cream cheese?
I honestly have no idea!
I made this and it tasted like butter and heavy cream. No where near Carmel flavored. Did I do so etching wrong?
Possibly not browning the butter?
I’m going to try this with some canned coconut cream concentrate… Do you think it will turn out the same? And would it be a good idea to try grinding up the truvia into a fine powder ( coffee grinder method) before doing this, or do the granules make it do something in regards to mouthfeel? Thank you!
Please let me know if it worked! I think the Truvia should dissolve with no problem. Put a few drops of hot water on it first, this will help it dissolve.
Hi, Don’t know if you still check these replies or not but have a question…
I can’t for the life of me to get this to turn the right colour, Everytime I try it just ends up a light cream colour. Holds together and all but tastes and looks more like a butter candy would.
I’ve tried cooking the butter longer until it was a darker golden colour but still ends up cream colour after adding the cream in… Any clue what I might be doing wrong?
*Also in Canada so our heavy cream is a 35% whipping cream could that be the problem?
Try reducing the cream and butter mixer a little longer after adding the cream. This will never be exactly like carmel since there is no sugar! I have only tried this recipe with 40% cream, so that is probably a factor.
The butter can be pretty dark before adding the cream. And yes, although this is an ok sub for caramel, it will never fully replace real caramel!
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How much of each ingredient should be used?? Esp sweetner
It is equal parts of butter and cream. I used 3g of Truvia for the snack portion size of 12g butter & cream. Make sure you keep stiffing after you take it off the heat, until it starts to thicken and cool.
this is awesome! thank youfor sharing it! question tho…after i removed it from the heat and got part of it poured into molds for candy it started separating out. is there a reason it did this? something i should do differently next time?
Continue stirring it for a few minutes after taking it off the heat. It needs to start cooling and that will keep it from separating. Then you can pour it into the candy molds, and it will stay together. Let me know how it goes!
ah, ok…i poured basically after i took it off the heat. thanks, will definitely try these again!
Thanks for mentioning this, I just updated the instructions!
Hi Dawn,
Can you make this in a batch form? Not sure how much you lose when cooking it. Thanks!
Hi, you can make this in a batch form but there is no way to calculate how much you loose when cooking it. However many batches you make (say 4) divide the final cooked recipe by 4 according to the total cooked weight. The recipe will weigh much less than it’s pre-cooked weight, but as long as you evenly divide it when it is finished, you will have the correct amount of fat and calories. Hope that helps!
[…] will be having a dessert as a meal! I will also be posting a Caramel Apple Pecan Pie using the carmel sauce from last […]
wow yum! I wonder if it would work with a dairy free cream?
I’m sure it would! If you try, please let us know.
Hi Dawn,
I am having trouble with it being separated – so it’s like a pile of brown bits and lots of liquid. Im thinking I’m cooking it too high, but it’s on as low as it goes. I hate my stupid electric stove!!! :o) Anyhow, is there anything else I might be doing wrong?
HI Julie,
I think you may be cooking the butter a little too long to start… It should be golden in color when you add the cream, not dark brown. Secondly, I think you are not cooking it long enough after adding the cream. The cream should come to a boil when first added. It will look like it is separated, but as you continue stirring and cooking it will eventually combine with the butter and start to reduce. If your cream does not boil, your stove it not hot enough. Let me know how it goes…
I’m seeing what Julie was seeing — I’d love to see a video of this.
The crunchy brown bits, while not exactly caramel, were certainly delicious.
Yes, this has proved to be a difficult recipe for sure! I am considering working with someone who can help me create video tutorials for several recipes. I will update this post if I do!
Will this work with Davinci caramel sugar-free syrup or another flavored liquid sweetner?
I THINK it will work fine with the syrups, just keep in mind that the flavors will be very concentrated after cooking. You may want to start with less than what you think you will need.
I know first hand how good this taste!!