Turn Store-Bought Cheesecake Into A Gourmet Dessert With This Boozy Topping

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When you elevate a frozen cheesecake with a gourmet topping, your dinner guests will never guess that you didn't make it. One boozy topping that turns a traditional New York-style cheesecake into a restaurant-quality dessert is a whiskey caramel sauce. Caramel sauce adds a deep, rich, toffee-like flavor to cheesecake. The underlying nutty, toasted notes are amplified with the addition of bourbon.

While you don't need to choose an expensive bourbon for this recipe, it helps to pick an aged, smoked bourbon with hints of maple or agave, like the Knob Creek Smoked Maple Small Batch Bourbon. You can make the caramel sauce from scratch or melt caramel candies into a sauce. To do this, put a bag of unwrapped caramels in a saucepan with heavy cream or evaporated milk. Then heat everything, stirring continuously, until it is smooth. Add two tablespoons of the bourbon and stir to combine.

To make a homemade salted caramel sauce, you will need butter, brown sugar, heavy cream, vanilla extract, and sea salt. After adding the cream and butter to the caramelized sugar, stir in the vanilla, sea salt, and about two tablespoons of bourbon. If you plan to use the sauce right away, let it cool for about 10 minutes and pour it over your thawed cheesecake. You can also make sauce ahead of time and store it in the fridge in an airtight container for up to a month, then microwave it in 20-second increments until it is soft enough to pour.

If you're not a fan of traditional cheesecake, you can also use this topping to make whiskey-caramel cheesecake bars. This dessert incorporates all of the flavors of the dessert, but in an easy-to-make form that even beginner bakers can master. Once you have formed a crust in a square pan, make the cheesecake batter, adding about a tablespoon of the same whiskey you used for the caramel sauce. Then pour the batter into the crust and bake it for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Let it chill for an hour in the fridge before cutting and serving. You can also make it the day before a party and keep it in the fridge until you're ready to serve it. About 30 minutes before serving, remove it from the fridge.

You don't even need to use the sauce on cheesecake. Whiskey and caramel make a decadent dessert combination that can be integrated into a number of different recipes. Spoon some over ice cream, baked apples, or yogurt, or use it as a substitute for frosting on a spice cake. Put a dab into your coffee, cocoa, or hot toddy to give it a festive kick. Drizzle some over your morning oatmeal instead of using sugar. If you're in charge of bringing the dessert this Thanksgiving, forget the whipped cream and top your pumpkin pie with salted caramel sauce instead.