Help! Husband left toffee sauce out all night

[LulusMom]

I made the toffee sauce that goes with Roxlet's amazing Sticky toffee pudding (if you love STP, you should search this board for the recipe and try it - wonderful) and my husband accidentally left it out all night last night. It has sugars, butter, syrup and ... cream all heated together. My gut instinct is that I need to toss it. Anyone know for sure? Thanks so much in advance.

[LulusMom]

Reporting in. We went ahead and boiled the sauce and ate it Tuesday night, and I'm typing this Thursday morning. None of us had any ill effects. YMMV, but for us this was fine. yay! Thanks for everyone's input.

[roxlet]

My cake is almost gone, but as usual, I have quite a bit of toffee sauce left. I wonder what else it would be good on -- ice cream? Like a hot toffee sundae? I just saw a recipe for date bars, and I was thinking, "I wonder if those would be good with toffee sauce?" I think I may cut the recipe down next time. Do you have lots left?

[LulusMom]

!!! I'd say the opposite! We must have sort of over-dosed on the toffee sauce. We have maybe 1/3 of the cake left, but not much toffee sauce. I think it would be amazing on vanilla ice cream, or maybe butter pecan.

[roxlet]

I noticed that now, after about five days, the cake is getting a little dry, so I just put on more toffee sauce, and it's wonderful again!

[hotoynoodle]

mix it into brownie or blondie batter.

[babette feasts]

Caramel sauce made with equal weights of sugar and cream is fine at room temp for days. I'm sure yours is fine.

[Cherylptw]

Agreed; I made caramel sauce on Christmas and have not nor will not refrigerate it. It's in a covered container at room temp.

[BiscuitBoy]

ah, the sniff test...followed 8 to 10 hrs later by the commode test. Is it that important? Really? Who will you serve it to? If you're not interested in your own health, think about others

[LulusMom]

Well, my husband, the culprit, is all for serving it, and he'd be one of the 3 of us eating it. Guilt-induced decision? You make the call.

[BiscuitBoy]

or punishment?!!! ; )

[LulusMom]

You have a very interesting way of looking at things, Mr. Biscuit Boy ...

[roxlet]

Haha. You'll be fine. Just bring to a boil.

[LulusMom]

Thanks everyone. Been away for almost 2 days, and really appreciate the help. We'll heat it up and give it the sniff (and taste) test.

[roxlet]

It's fine. Just reheat it and get it to a boil, stir, turn off.
Ours was amazing too, but I did manage to put the toffee sauce away! I think it's pretty indestructible -- I put it on a low flame to melt all the sugars, and then forgot about it. It was really boiling when I went back to the stove, but I took it off and added the cream, and it was fine. I really thought I blew it!!

[oooYUM]

I don't "know", but Just taste it and see if it's still delicious !
Then reheat as greeneggsnham suggests.
Personally, I don't scare easily over stuff left out....
I wouldn't toss it at all... but if you are too worried to enjoy it,
can you make another batch?

[greeneggsnham]

Can't say that I am a food science expert, but I would re-heat it to a simmer, taste it and eat it if it tastes okay. I believe that high concentrations of sugar are a preservative (due to osmotic effects). And it's really not that different from a caramel candy that you would leave sitting out right? And in terms of leaving cream out at room temp... after making the amazing overnight waffles where you leave a milk-based batter sitting out on the counter overnight and then cook it in the morning to no ill effects, I would think that this should likewise be safe. Now, if it soured it might not taste so good, but I would feed it to my family if it tasted okay.

[Gio]

Happy Boxing Day LLM... If the sauce recipe is similar to the recipe in the link I believe the sauce should have been refrigerated as indicated:

"Because this recipe contains cream and butter, the caramel sauce is not shelf-stable - be sure to refrigerate..."

http://www.ebfarm.com/recipes/sea-sal...

[magiesmom]

I would not toss it.