Saturday 29 November 2008

Daring Baker's Caramel Cupcakes


Once again, its time for a Daring Baker's challenge and after several rounds of savoury offerings, I was happy to see that this month's challenge was a sweet one! This time, the pick was a Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting by Shuna Fish Lyon.

As I often do, I turned this cake recipe into cupcakes as I always find that makes it easier to share with friends, and in keeping with holiday spirit of this season, I decorated them with some "bling". All of the components of this cake were easy to make and I managed to do them all within about 2 hours. If you are pressed for time, however, the frosting can be made ahead and kept in the fridge and I imagine the caramel sauce can be as well.

The results? Scrumptious, but extremely sweet. Definitely for caramel lovers only.

Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting
Recipe by Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater

For the cake:
10 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/4 Cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 Cup Caramel Syrup (see recipe below)
2 each eggs, at room temperature
splash vanilla extract
2 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350F

Butter one tall (2 – 2.5 inch deep) 9-inch cake pan.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and salt & cream until light and fluffy.

Slowly pour room temperature caramel syrup into bowl. Scrape down bowl and increase speed. Add eggs/vanilla extract a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform.

Sift flour and baking powder.

Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add half of the milk, a little at a time. Add another third of the dry ingredients, then the other half of the milk and finish with the dry ingredients. {This is called the dry, wet, dry, wet, dry method in cake making. It is often employed when there is a high proportion of liquid in the batter.}

Take off mixer and by hand, use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure batter is uniform. Turn batter into prepared cake pan.

Place cake pan on cookie sheet or 1/2 sheet pan. Set first timer for 30 minutes, rotate pan and set timer for another 15-20 minutes. Your own oven will set the pace. Bake until sides pull away from the pan and skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool cake completely before icing it.

Cake will keep for three days outside of the refrigerator.

For the caramel syrup:
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup water (for "stopping" the caramelization process)
In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber.

When color is achieved, very carefully pour in one cup of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back.

Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.}

Note: For safety reasons, have ready a bowl of ice water to plunge your hands into if any caramel should land on your skin.

For the caramelized butter frosting:
12 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound confectioner’s sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-4 tablespoons caramel syrup
Kosher or sea salt to taste

Cook butter until brown. Pour through a fine meshed sieve into a heatproof bowl, set aside to cool.

Pour cooled brown butter into mixer bowl.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, add confectioner's sugar a little at a time. When mixture looks too chunky to take any more, add a bit of cream and or caramel syrup. Repeat until mixture looks smooth and all confectioner's sugar has been incorporated. Add salt to taste.

Note: Caramelized butter frosting will keep in fridge for up to a month.
To smooth out from cold, microwave a bit, then mix with paddle attachment until smooth and light

For original recipe source, Bay Area Bites, click here.
Daring Bakers hosts this month:
Dolores from Culinary Curiosity
Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go

Wednesday 26 November 2008

Happy Turkey Day! (TWD edition)



To those of you who are celebrating Thanksgiving today, Happy Turkey Day. Although Thanksgiving is not officially a holiday here in London, there are enough Americans here that the significance of the day is still felt. Besides, 10 years of living in the US means I vividly recall the Thanksgiving feasts with all the requisite celebratory fare.

Unfortunately for me, I never developed a palate for pumpkin pie while I lived there... Chalk it up to fussy taste buds. In the last few years, however, I've become decidedly more adventurous in the things that I eat and pumpkin is now one of my favourite fall flavours. It is well-timed then, that this week's TWD recipe is the Thanksgiving Twofer pie, a combination pumpkin and pecan pie.

It was my first time making pumpkin pie and I think I must have had a little mishap because for some reason, my pie doesn't quite look like some of the pictures I've seen from fellow TWDers. Still, its the taste that counts and I still enjoyed it very much. I do, however, prefer just a plain pumpkin pie an think I will stick to that instead in the future.

For recipe, click here.

Tuesday 18 November 2008

Arborio Rice Pudding


I've never really been a rice pudding kind of gal but part of the fun of being part of a group like TWD is trying stuff that you wouldn't normally otherwise make. Besides, the recipe looked really easy and I had all the ingredients to hand.

Now whenever a recipe has a chocolate option, you can be sure I'm going to take that! So this time, I chose to make both the white and the black version. I placed them in these tiny glasses that I picked up recently at a cooking school here in London and they made perfect "bite-sized" desserts for after dinner.

The verdict? Well, I'm not exactly a convert to rice pudding but I must say these were pretty good and I'm glad that I gave it a chance.

For recipe, click here.