November Daring Bakers: Caramel Cake (or Cupcakes)

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend with people you love and that you're eating too much!! It's also time for another Daring Bakers post. November's challenge was hosted by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity, Alex of Blondie and Brownie, and Jenny of Foray into Food. Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go helped with the gluten free edition. The challenge, which I accepted, was to bake Shuna Fish Lydon's famous caramel cake with the optional challenge of making Alice Medrich's golden vanilla bean caramels from her book Pure Dessert.

Let me tell you, I was super deluxe nervous about making this recipe. Last month, I mentioned that I suck at candy making and this recipe called for caramel in several ways. There was caramel syrup in the cake and frosting, and of course, being the overachiever in the kitchen that I have been known to be, of course I was going to try making the golden caramels. My first concern was when to make the cake and how to make the cake. The original recipe called for a tall baking pan which I do not have. The other concern was deciding whether to bake the cake for myself or my friends. Luckily, JenFinn decided to host a potluck (which was one of our biggest) at the beginning of the month so the when was not so much an issue. To make this recipe more potluck friendly, I changed it a little to make cupcakes (which many Daring Bakers ended up doing). A little bit of research (and very helpful advice from my fellow bakers), turned me on to this article by David Lebovitz. I realized that my main problem when making the dreadful pepita brittle was that I was using organic sugar. In his article, David explains that one of the secrets to making caramel is to use a white, refined sugar. Lesson learned.

The first part of the recipe that I tried was the caramel syrup that was needed for the cake and for the icing. I found this to be quite easy compared to some of the other Daring Bakers. I have an intense fear of burning things, so I didn't let this syrup get quite as amber in color as others, but I also didn't burn it. I made the syrup the night before the cakes kept it in a jar in the refrigerator until I made the cakes (I still have some left!). Later that same night, I attempted the caramels. The recipe for the caramels calls for something called golden syrup. I have never heard of or seen golden syrup, but my trusty Google led me to a site that said you can use half light corn syrup and half honey to get something that resembles golden syrup so that's what I did. I cooked my caramels to 260 and then poured them into a pan to let them cool. I made two mistakes that night. 1) I really wish I had cooked the caramels to 265 to make a firmer caramel, the ones I made were very soft blobs, 2) I kept tasting the caramels (and burning my fingers) as they cooled. I could not get enough of the flavor of these things. SO INCREDIBLY GOOD! I have never been a huge fan of caramels, but if you get a chance to make these sometime, I strongly suggest you do so. Again, I wish I had cooked mine to a firmer temperature. It was kind of a bitch getting these into wrappers and they kept turning into caramel blobs instead of the lovely squares I cut them into, but all was forgiven once I popped the sugary goodness in my mouth.

The last two parts of the challenge were the cake itself and the brown butter buttercream icing. I found the cake recipe to be very straightforward and the easiest part of the recipe. The only thing I really had to modify was the cooking time because I made cupcakes instead of a full cake. The frosting was...interesting. The measurements were vague and many people were complaining of the overwhelming sweetness in the final recipe. I absolutely hate when things are too sweet so instead of the pound of confectioners sugar called for in the recipe, I only used two cups. I added the beans from a one inch piece of vanilla to give the icing some more flavor and those lovely flecks of vanilla. I also used about a teaspoon of sea salt to counteract the sweetness of the recipe. I topped each cupcake with a caramel blob and I think the flavors all complimented each other nicely.

And there you have it. These seemed to be a big hit at the potluck, but it could have been my friends lying to me, paired with the copious amounts of wine and the thrill of our monster version of Mafia, the game (to this day I maintain my innocence as a townsperson). Again, I hope you are having a most fantastic Thanksgiving weekend. I am off to my highschool reunion. GAH!! Has it really been 10 years already?!?! Enjoy the long weekend. If you would like to see how the other Daring Bakers interpreted this cake, check out the blogroll. To get the full recipes, please visit the sites of any of our hosts.