Caramel Sauce... I'm cheating on my caramels!

Found a new love and fun new experiment.  I saw something on pinterest that aligned with an idea my daughter had proposed to me.  Can we make a caramel sauce out of the caramel recipe?  My daughter said the caramels tasted just like the caramel sauce at our favorite ice cream parlor Leatherby's.  My first thought was why couldn't we cook the caramel recipe less.  Then I saw the Slow Cooker Caramel Sauce pin.  The recipe was very similar to the caramel recipe.  Only a couple things differed.  1/2 as much butter, white sugar and brown sugar and lemon juice.

I decided I wouldn't add the lemon juice.  The reason given on the blog entry said it was so the caramel sauce sugar wouldn't crystallize after it was done.  WELL I saw an Alton Brown show about 5 years ago on this very subject.  He was talking about the crystallization of sugar in fudge (BTW the peanut butter fudge recipe from this episode is outstanding.)  He acted out the whole science experiment explaining when fudge crystallizes and how to stop it.  His solution was to add 1 T of corn syrup to confuse the sugar molecules and stop the crystallization.  The caramel recipe calls for 1 full cup of corn syrup.  So, I think we're covered for any crystallization problems.

I decided to use all brown sugar like my caramel recipe, but I decided to use the amount of butter called for in the caramel sauce recipe.

Finding a bowl to fit in my crockpot was the most difficult part of this whole process.  I ended up using my daughter's newer model crockpot since it was bigger and could hold the right sized bowl.
I followed the directions up to mixing the ingredients and putting them into the crockpot and there is where I diverged a little.  I didn't want to mess with it.  I wanted it to cook all night while I was asleep.  8 hours.  The recipe said it HAD to be on high to properly cook.  Since I was using my daughter's newer crockpot I knew the heat was already higher on low than mine is on low (the reason I love my old crockpot.)  I figured it might do just fine on low for 8 hours.

Before cooking.

After 7 1/2 hours

I was correct.  When I took the lid off in the morning it had been 7 1/2 hours and the texture of the caramel sauce looked a little custard like.  That did scare me at first.  I plunged my wire whisk in and began stirring.  Once it was stirred well it had the proper texture of caramel sauce.  It smelled and tasted fantastic.  I teased my daughter it was all I could do not to pinch my nose and do a cannonball right into it.  It was that good.

Now that we've actually used it on ice cream our thoughts are it does need that 1/2 cup of butter.  Though delicious and we'll eat every drop (reason why I've already given 1/2 of it away) it does need a more buttery taste to meet our idea of the perfect caramel sauce.

Makes 4 cups.  I had already filled a small mason jar to give as a gift.

Apples or ice cream it really hits the spot.

I will definitely make this again with 1 cup of butter, all brown sugar, and no lemon juice.