When you hear Buttermilk Syrup, you still probably think about maple syrup. This syrup is amazing because it can be used similar to a maple syrup on breakfast recipes from pancakes to waffles to crepes, but it’s also my go-to caramel sauce for desserts like ice cream and cheesecake and makes an incredible gift, all wrapped up in a cute mason jar. The flavor is incredibly well rounded and it lends itself well to so many different uses. It’s also a great use for leftover buttermilk, if you bought a container for a single recipe (like my Buttermilk Ranch Dressing) and now don’t know what to do with the rest! Once you learn how easy this is to make, it will become a household staple!
Ingredient and Equipment List
- Buttermilk – I don’t recommend buttermilk substitutes in this recipe, and I haven’t tried it with powdered buttermilk. I like to use real buttermilk, though low or full fat is just fine.
- Butter – I use real, salted, butter. If you use unsalted butter, you’ll want to add a little extra salt to the sauce to balance out the flavor.
- Sugar – Use regular white granulated sugar.
- Corn Syrup – Corn syrup is an important ingredient because it prevents the sauce from crystallizing.
- Baking Soda – Baking soda is important because it reacts with the acidic ingredients and helps with the sauce’s texture.
- Vanilla – Vanilla adds flavor to the finished caramel sauce.
Instructions
- Combine buttermilk, butter, sugar, corn syrup, and baking soda in a large pot.
- Heat and stir to combine all ingredients and then bring to a low simmer.
- Continue to simmer until the mixture turns deep golden in color.
- Let cool to warm and stir to smooth.
Store in an airtight container in the fridge. You can heat in the microwave to warm up.
Your sauce will probably start to get a little grainy and crystallize before it goes bad. Eat up up in 3-4 days for best results.
No, this recipe is not designed for canning. If you gift it in a mason jar, make sure the recipient knows to just keep it in the fridge. TIP: Sometimes after this sauce sits unused for a day or two, it will get a little crystallized (but still tastes amazing!) Testers have found adding an extra tablespoon or so of corn syrup helps with this. If you plan to gift this buttermilk caramel, you may want to try that.
Buttermilk Syrup
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup buttermilk
- 1 1/2 cup sugar
- 8 Tablespoons 1 stick real butter
- 2 tablespoons corn syrup
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Combine buttermilk, sugar, butter, corn syrup, and baking soda in a LARGE pot. Like one you'd make soup in. Yes, you'll have way more pot than ingredients but this will boil all over your newly-cleaned stove if you put it in a smaller saucepan.
- Bring ingredients to a boil and reduce heat to low (as long as it's still bubbling, you're okay). Cook, stirring very frequently, for 8-9 minutes. You're basically making candy here and candy-making requires constant vigilance.
- When it's done, it should take on a golden-brown color. Remove from heat and add vanilla.
- There will be foam on top. As it cools a little, just keep stirring and the foam will subside.
Questions & Reviews
I love this syrup, its so delicious! My family loves it as well. Do you think you could can this recipe? It would just be convenient to have some preserved on the shelf and ready when you need it.
We don’t recommend canning this recipe- you’ll want to use recipes specifically designed and tested for canning and this isn’t.
OMG, I just saw this on Pinterest and re-pinned it. It sounds amazing and I can’t wait to try it out. Thank for posting.
Holy cow- just made this tonight for our waffles and it was AMAZING!! Thank you thank you for posting this, it’s freaking life-changing for this waffle-lover! 🙂
I just made this and life will never be the same!!! this is so freaking good!!!
Has anyone had success with substituting honey for corn syrup?
I absolutely adore this sauce! I have had the Our Best Bites cookbook for a year now and am slowly working my way through it, and yesterday (Christmas!) I made this sauce to go over french toast made with potato bread. Divine! I, like many other readers, also plan to make jars of this for gifts next year. (Too bad I hadn’t made this one week earlier. I could have done it this year!) While I CANNOT claim (do not claim!) to be a canning “expert,” I do know quite a bit about it and can say that in general, it is not considered safe to home-can things that have dairy ingredients. Home canning equipment (even pressure canners) do not have the ability to heat most dairy products sufficiently to kill all bacteria, so every [reputable] source I’ve read has said to stay away from it. Of course, there are always people who say “My grandma has been doing it this way for 50 years and nobody’s ever gotten sick” and that may even be true, but the risk of illness is much higher than with, say, diced tomatoes. So I will just tell everyone to refrigerate these wonderful jars of sauce!
So I just doubled this and jarred it up for gifts, it tastes so good that I actually burst out laughing in my kitchen when i tasted it. All alone. Thank you for another winner!
This recipe is to die for. We have been using it for years and when we share the recipe with those we have shared the syrup, they too are shocked with the ingredients. This is a favorite on sour dough pancakes! One batch is always enough for pancakes at breakfast and then over ice cream at dinner with a family of 5 🙂
I hope you’re right about the life span… I’ve never made these yummy condiments (like this one!) before but for Christmas this year we are doing baskets and bags full of homemade goodies because, well, we just don’t have a lot of money and I LOVE the idea of doing jams, syrups, etc. that will last and won’t be a dessert and/or cookie overload that ends up getting thrown away! So that being said, I’ll take your word! I think this sauce would be awesome over a cheesecake, too!
I made this for girl’s camp (with our Crepes) in August and brought back the rest. It’s been refrigerated ever since and we’ve used it almost every weekend on pancakes or waffles. No one has gotten sick and it tastes as good as it did when I first made it. I made it with store bought buttermilk (not the powder). That’s a 3+ month endorsement! Disclaimer: if you get sick, don’t blame me 🙂