Caramel Cake with Caramelised Butter Frosting ~ The Daring Bakers!

This month at “The Daring Bakers”, we are back to sweet treats with the holidays looming near. Sugar is absolutely the celebrity of this shindig! This month’s wonderful cookbook recipe is courtesy of author Shuna Fish Lyndon of Egg Beater and the recipe is published on Bay Area Bites. Our host this month is Dolores of Culinary Curiosity ~ Co-hosts Alex (Brownie) of the Blondie and Brownie & Jenny of Foray into Food and for Gluten Free Baking Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go. My thanks go to all our hosts for this month’s challenge.

There is also an optional challenge for Golden Vanilla Bean Caramels recipe from Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert, Artisan Press, Copyright 2007, ISBN: 978-1579652111. However, due to my family not eating caramels, I sadly refrained from this optional challenge.

I have found it very exciting this month; this is my first time of making caramel syrup. I was a little apprehensive at first but following the instructions to the latter it was straightforward to accomplish. I will in the future be incorporating this recipe for caramelised butter frosting in some of my future bakes! It is one of the most delicious butter frostings I have ever tasted. We were also fortunate this month to have freedom on size/ shape of cake/ extra flavours and decor.

I had thought of making cupcakes at first then last minute went with a sandwich cake. I used 2 x 20cm (8 in) tins and it worked well. I altered the amount of time in the oven for baking to 25 minutes and the sponges came out golden and baked through perfectly. I sandwiched the two sponges together with frosting and then spread frosting over the top of the cake. Drizzled a little caramel syrup in the centre and added few sugar coated chocolates. Finally, I sprinkled a little edible gold glitter over the top for that shindig feeling.

Here is the recipe ~ slightly adapted to the original

For The Sponge
10 tbsp (5 oz) unsalted butter at room temperature
1¼ cups granulated sugar
½ tsp kosher salt
1/3 cup Caramel Syrup **see recipe below**
2 eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour (all-purpose)
½ tsp baking powder
1 cup of milk, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4. 2 x 20cm (8 in) tins greased with a little butter and floured, tapping out any loose flour.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar and salt and then cream until light and fluffy. Slowly pour room temperature caramel syrup into bowl. Scrape down bowl and increase speed. Add the eggs/vanilla extract a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down the bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform. Sift flour and baking powder together. Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add half the milk and finish with the dry ingredients. Take off the mixer and by hand, use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure the batter is uniform. Divide the batter equally between the two tins and smooth the tops with a spatula. Place the tins into the preheated oven and bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in the tins for 5 minutes before turning out on a wire rack to completely cool.

Caramel Syrup
2 cups sugar
½ cup water
1 cup of water **for “stopping” the caramelisation process**

In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix the water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush any stray sugar crystals with a wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly; dark amber colour. When colour 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 a bowl of ice water to plunge your hands into if any caramel should land on your skin.**

Caramelised Butter Frosting
12 tbsp (approx 6 oz) unsalted butter
1 lb icing (confectioner’s) sugar, sifted
4-6 tbsp vanilla extract
2-4 tbsp 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 the icing (confectioner’s) sugar a little at a time. When mixture looks too chunky to take anymore, add a bit of cream and or caramel syrup. Repeat until mixture looks smooth and all icing (confectioner’s) sugar has been incorporated. Add salt to taste.

To assemble the cake; place the bottom sponge cake on a serving plate and apply approx quarter of the frosting to the top and smooth over with a spatula. Place the second sponge on top and apply a good quantity of frosting on top smoothing over with a spatula, making a few lines for decor if wished. Fill a piping bag (using a star nozzle) with the remaining frosting and pipe around the top edge. With a little caramel syrup drizzle over the centre top of the cake then place a few decorations in the centre (I used sugar coated heart shaped chocolates) and sprinkle over a little edible gold glitter.

Mamma Mia - Its Pizza & Toppings for The Daring Bakers!

This month’s Daring Bakers is being hosted by the lovely Rosa @ Rosa’s Yummy-yums. However, there is a sense of deep sadness amongst us at Daring Bakers because this month was supposedly to be co-hosted by Sherry @ What Did You Eat and Glenna @ A fridge Full of Food. Sherry tragically passed away July ’08 and prior to her death only 9 days before; she shared with Rosa her recipe idea for this challenge. Rosa felt that it was her sense of duty to respect Sherry’s choice and submitted Sherry’s recipe for this month’s challenge. Glenna a close friend of Sherry’s decided she needed time and could not take part in hosting this challenge.

I would therefore like to dedicate this Daring Bakers Challenge to a much cherished blogger, D.B. member, skilled baker and cook –Sherry Cermak.

This month we have focused on learning how to make real pizza dough and Rosa challenged us D.B’s to use the traditional method of tossing dough! It was fun, laughs and giggles all the way with my family watching me trying to toss the dough and it was well worth making pizzas just for this! I made a homemade crushed tomato sauce for the base and applied various topping to suit the requests of family members.

It has been an extremely fun challenge with gorgeous fresh pizzas! There’s no stopping me now folks as I continue making my own pizzas! Pizza outlets you’d better watch out for Mamma Mia here in the kitchen making pizzaiolos *giggle*.

The recipe source for the pizza dough was chosen from, “The Bread Makers Apprentice: Mastering The Art of Extraordinary Bread” by Peter Reinhart.

Basic Pizza Dough

Makes 6 pizza crusts (about 9 – 12 inches/23-30cm in diameter). This recipe yields a tasty, thin, crisp yet chewy pizza crust/

Ingredients
4½ cups unbleached bread flour
1¾ tsp salt
1 tsp instant yeast
¼ cup Olive oil or vegetable oil (both optional but its better with)
1¾ cups water, ice cold (40°F/4.5°C)
1 tbsp sugar
Semolina/durum flour or cornmeal for dusting

Method

Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a large bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer).

Add the oil, sugar and cold water and mix well (with the help of a large wooden spoon or with paddle attachment, on low speed) in order to form a sticky ball of dough. On a clean surface, knead for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are homogeneously distributed. If it’s too wet, add a little flour (not too much though) and if too dry add 1 or 2 teaspoons extra water.

*Note* if using an electric mixer, switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for the same amount of time. The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet, sprinkle in a little more flour, so that it clears the sides. If, on the contrary, it clears the bottom of the bowl, dribble in a teaspoon or two of cold water. The finished dough should be springy, elastic and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50°F-55°F/10°C-13°C.

Flour a work surface. Line a jelly pan with baking paper/parchment. Lightly oil the paper.

With the help of a metal scrapper, cut the dough into 6 equal pieces. *Note* To avoid the dough from sticking to the scrapper; dip the scrapper into water between cuts.

Sprinkle some flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Gently round each piece into a ball. *Note* if the flour sticks to your hands, then dip your hands into the flour again.

Dough into 6 equal pieces

Transfer the dough balls onto the lined jelly pan and mist them generously with spray oil. Slip the pan into a plastic bag or enclose in plastic food wrap. Put the pan into the fridge and let the dough rest overnight or for up to three days.

*Note* You can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag if you want to save some of the dough for any future baking. In that case, pour a little oil (2 tbsp) in a medium bowl and dip each dough ball into the oil, so that it is completely covered in oil. Then put each ball into a separate bag. Store the bags in the freezer for no longer than 3 months. The day before you plan to make pizza, remember to transfer the dough balls from the freezer to the fridge.

On the day you plan to eat pizza, exactly 2 hours before you make it, remove the desired number of dough balls from the fridge. Dust the counter with flour and spray lightly with oil. Place the dough balls on a floured surface and sprinkle them with flour. Dust your hands with flour and delicately press the dough into disks about ½ inch/ 1/3cm thick and 5 inches/12.7cm in diameter. Sprinkle with flour and mist with oil. Loosely cover the dough rounds with plastic wrap and then allow to rest for 2 hours.

At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible 500°F/260°C. *Note* If you do not have a baking stone, then use the back of a jelly pan. Do not preheat the pan.

Generously sprinkle the back of a jelly pan with semolina/durum flour or cornmeal. Flour you hands (palms, backs and knuckles). Take 1 piece of dough by lifting it with a pastry scrapper. Lay the dough across your fists in a very delicate way and carefully stretch it by bouncing it in a circular motion on your hands, and by giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss in the air. *Note* Make only one pizza at a time. During the tossing process, if the dough tends to stick to your hands, lay it down on the floured surface and re-flour your hands, then continue the tossing and shaping. In case you would be having trouble tossing the dough or if the dough never wants to expand and always springs back, let it rest for approximately 5-20 minutes in order for the gluten to relax fully, then try again.

Carefully stretching the dough

Place tomato sauce and toppings on (see recipe below for crushed tomato sauce).

Slide the garnished pizza on to the stone in the oven or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for about 5-8 minutes. If the top gets done before the bottom, you will need to move the stone or jelly pan to a lower shelf before the next pizza. If the bottom crisps before the cheese caramelises, then you need to raise the stone or jelly pan.

Sliced fresh tomato, mozzarella, fresh basil leaves and pepperoni pizza

The whole works pizza unbaked

Take the pizza out of the oven and transfer it to a cutting board or your plate. In order to allow the cheese to set a little, wait 3-5 minutes before slicing or serving.

Sliced fresh tomato, mozzarella, fresh basil leaves and pepperoni pizza

The whole works pizza

Crushed Tomato Sauce

I halved this recipe as I only made three pizzas. . Some canned tomatoes can be very salted so you will need to adjust the amount to your requirements.

Ingredients
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tbsp granulated garlic powder
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt or to taste

In a bowl, stir together all the ingredients, starting with ½ tsp salt and adding more to taste. Some canned tomatoes can be very salted so you will need to adjust the amount to your requirements.

For the other toppings I used different mixes on pizzas to family requirements of cooked ham, grated cheddar cheese, pepperoni, sliced fresh tomato, slices thin red onion, mozzarella and fresh basil leaves.

The other Daring Bakers have been busy with Pizzas and Toppings so please do call by and view their creations.

Lavash Crackers & Avocado Salsa – Daring Bakers Challenge

The hosts for this month’s Daring Bakers challenge are Natalie @ Gluten a Go Go & Shel @ Musings From The Fish Bowl. They are both making history at the Daring Bakers due to the torch being handed over for the first time to Alternative – Daring Bakers! - Well done ladies!! They certainly stepped up to the plate with a most wonderful challenge this month of Lavash crackers (with a choice of gluten free or non gluten free), and our own choice of toppings/dip/salsa/relish or spreads.

What are Lavash crackers? They are an Armenian style cracker and similar to the many other Middle Eastern and North African flatbreads, known by different names such as, mankoush or mannaeesh (Lebanese), barbari (Iranian), Khoubiz or Khobz (Arabian). Aiysh (Egyptian) kesret and mella (Tunisian), pide or pita (Turkish) and pideh (Armenian). The main difference between these breads is how thick or thin the dough is rolled and how it is baked. Many of these breads would be cooked on stones or red hot pans. The key element to a good crisp lavash is to ensure the dough is rolled paper thin. The sheet of dough can be cut into shapes before baking or broken into shards after baking.

I have never heard let alone attempted to bake these delicious crackers before, but I must admit they are spectacular and I will certainly be baking these again! The Daring Bakers wanted us to use our imaginations and creativity with various toppings for the crackers; it’s always great to be able to add one’s own touches to a bake. The toppings I used in my crackers are; sweet smoked paprika, cumin seeds, sesame seeds, Maldon sea salt, mixed dried herbs & cayenne pepper and I adore the rustic finish of broken shards to these crackers. To accompany the crackers, I selected an Avocado Salsa but the margins here were endless for salsa etc, just as long as it was vegan and gluten free.

I really have enjoyed this month’s challenge it’s been a blast! I felt like an Armenian mamma lifting the dough from the work surface and waving it in the air to place it down again to relax before re-rolling once again until paper thin.

The recipe for the Lavash crackers was sourced from: The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread, by Peter Reinhart.

Here is the recipe for the Lavash crackers

For The Avocado Salsa

Ingredients
1 small ripe avocado
½ small red onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbps fresh coriander, chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped very finely
½ red chilli chopped into tiny pieces or add more if you prefer it hotter
Pinch of sugar
Salt & pepper
Garnish with either sprigs of coriander or flat leaf parsley.

Method

Stone, peel and dice the avocado, then mix with the onion, lime juice, coriander, garlic, red chilli and sugar. Season to taste and place into a serving bowl and wrap in cling film and set aside for 10 minutes for the flavours to mingle before eating. Garnish with coriander or flat leaf parsley.

Daring Bakers Challenge – Chocolate Éclairs

This month’s challenge is hosted by Tony Tahhan and MeetaK, who gave us Daring Bakers a great challenge of chocolate éclairs – many thanks guys for hosting this month’s D.B. & for such a great bake!! The recipe was chosen from Pierre Hermé from a cookbook written by Dorie Greenspan: Chocolate Desserts By Pierre Hermé.

There are three elements to éclairs; Pate a Choux, also known as Choux Pastry or Cream Puff Dough, Pastry Cream & Chocolate glaze.

Tony and Meetak, were very generous in allowing for modifications of this recipe, by using just one of the chocolate elements and allowing for artistic juices to flow. Being such a chocoholic myself, of course I had to go with both the chocolate elements, which consist of the chocolate pastry cream and chocolate glaze!!

I have made choux pastry before but not in quite the same way as was required for this month’s recipe. I have to say; the idea of mixing in the eggs with a stand mixer into the dough is brilliant and it didn’t leave me with muscles like Popeye, should it have been a wooden spoon and brute force!!

The family enjoyed these really delicious éclairs and I certainly will be trying this recipe out once again. The only downside, I believe I should have left the chocolate glaze to harden off a little more before coating the tops of the éclairs.

Hello my ‘dearest’ friends

Firstly, my heartfelt thanks to you all for all your best wishes and concerns whist I have been feeling unwell! I am SO pleased to *see* the back of July this year as it has been one thing after another with visiting various consultants and my G.P. for various tests etc, I don’t wish to boar you all with the details and I am just so pleased to be back with you all now.

On a brighter note for July 08 I have been having a new kitchen fitted and it’s still an ongoing project at the moment. As I type I am having my new tiles added to the walls and it will be great to get the whole project finished and not looking and feeling as if I am living on a building site lol.

Danish pastries Daring Bakers Junes Challenge

I know I am way behind in posting my Junes challenge for Daring Bakers but I wanted to share with you what I had baked. I really enjoyed this challenge because it is something I have never baked before and it was such fun. He filling consisted for the large pastry an apple filling; the small pastries were filled with an apricot filling. A great success with my family and they didn’t last very long before the last morsel was eaten *giggle*.

Apricot Danish Pastry

Apple Danish Pastry


Apple Danish Pasty

The Daring Bakers Sing in Tune with Opéra Cake

It’s that time of month again to reveal the Daring Bakers Challenge and what an amazing baking challenge this has been! The Opéra Cake for this challenge is being made in light colours and flavours and not the normal dark colours and flavours of chocolate, coffee.

Firstly I would like to dedicate my month’s challenge to Barbara of winosandfoodies.com Barbara is the force behind the food blog event called A Taste of Yellow that supports the LiveStrong foundation started by Lance Armstrong

This month’s Daring Bakers challenge is being hosted by the Daring Bakers co-founders, Lis La Mia Cucina and Ivonne Creampuffs in Venice and co-hosted by Fran of Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie and Shea of Whiskful. – many thanks for hosting this month’s event! I absolutely adore citrus flavours and I just happened to have a bottle of Limoncello liqueur and juicy lemons in eagerness for baking this cake. An opera cake is made up of four elements, although we Daring Bakers were given the optional choice of making the ganache mousse and just layering with buttercream, I went the whole hog and made the four elements.

The Four Elements to an Opéra Cake:

Joconde: The base of an Opéra Cake is a thin sponge cake that is made using nut meal, traditionally almond meal (finely ground blanched almonds)

Syrup: The joconde is flavoured with a sugar syrup that can be flavoured to suit your tastes.

Buttercream: The first two layers of the joconde are covered in a rich buttercream. This particular buttercream is made with a syrup, eggs and butter.

Ganache/Mousse : In some recipes, the final layer of the joconde is covered in a ganache or mousse.

I thoroughly enjoyed making this cake and if I am being honest when I started to make each element this cake wasn’t as difficult to achieve as I first thought! It could even be made in stages and left in the fridge to assemble at a later date.




To finalise my decorations I sliced my cake into sections, I whipped some fresh cream and piped it on in swirls and made two theatre masks in sugarpaste on half of the cake and the remaining slices I placed swirls of whipped fresh cream and sugar flowers, sugar stars and jelly lemons.

With all the lemon flavours running through this is one truly amazing tasting cake and one that I will be making in the future for special occasions.

Cheesecake Pops – Daring Bakers April o8

Hosting this month’s event is Elle from Feeding My Enthusiasms and Deborah from Taste and Tell. Thank you Elle and Deborah for hosting D.B. this month.

They selected a fun recipe for the Daring Bakers of ‘Cheesecake Pops’, from a tempting little book called Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor. They both explained that they wanted to pick something that each Daring Baker could put their own stamp onto. They both kindly gave a little leeway of adding flavouring to the cheesecake and the chocolate dipping could be of any kind of chocolate with the addition of sprinkles and ribbons if we so wished. The shapes of the cheesecake pops could be of any kind as long as they weighed 50g (2 oz) each. There are various techniques and stages being used in making these pops, making and baking a cheesecake in a bain-marie, forming the cheesecake into desired shapes, tempering chocolate and dipping chocolate and working with it before it freezes to add sprinkles on.

The challenge for me was finding little lollipop sticks and I ended up having to use plastic straws because the wooden lollipop sticks were way too large to use that I had brought. Not having little children anymore to eat my cheesecake pops I halved the whole recipe without any problems. How do halve an egg I hear you say for the cheesecake, I simply lightly whisked an egg into a cup and only used half. I made approximately 22 cheesecake pops in all with doing this.

The cheesecake mixture I made in my Kitchen Aid mixer and poured this into a deep enough metal baking tin and placed into a bain-marie to bake in the oven. The cheesecake itself is very creamy, light and defiantly delicious. It was then left to cool and wrapped overnight in cling film and placed into the fridge to work into 50g (2 oz) shapes the next day. I decided to keep the shapes round and placed my straws into the centre ready to freeze for a couple of hours before covering with the tempered chocolate and sprinkles. Once the chocolate was coating the cheesecake shapes I had to work quickly to add the sprinkles before the chocolate set to a hard crackle.

I truly enjoyed making my cheesecake pops and with using various techniques in each step it was fun, fun, fun!! If I am being honest on taste here, I am sure young children will adore them and find them fun to eat however, I really enjoyed the cheesecake element but adding the chocolate coating, I did find them quite sickly to eat after one bite.

Daring Bakers – Doire Greenspan’s Perfect Party Cake

This is my first challenge with the Daring Bakers and I had been pondering for many months to join this elite group of bakers. My only wish is that I should have joined them a long time ago! Why did I feel so nervous to take the plunge in the first place, I now ask myself? I wouldn’t class myself as a novice baker having been baking now for well over thirty years since an early age, but there is always something new to learn be it technique or a new ingredient etc.

This month’s challenge is hosted by Morven of Food Art and Random Thoughts

Morven allowed with this challenge to “play” around a little with colours and flavours, which gives one a clean palate to create a master piece of your own. This month I admit being my first challenge I stuck to the general recipe at hand and didn’t deviate from it very much. However, when a recipe calls for cake flour I have always been unsuccessful to find this in England and had to make adjustments, for every cup of plain flour required by this recipe, I removed 1 tablespoon of flour and added 1 tablespoon of cornflour. In my personnel opinion, different flours can tip the balance from a sponge being a success to an ultimate failure. Not being able to source the correct flour, I found the sponge mixture required more liquid and in this case it was buttermilk to ensure a light soft sponge. I would also like to state that I prefer to add flour by hand to my sponges, folding in gently with a large metal spoon, this makes for a much lighter sponge as the glutens in the flour are not over mixed, which if they are, can lead to a very heavy sponge. Having followed my instincts with Dorie’s recipe I was able to make two light airy sponges without any problems. Having let the sponges cool until completely cold I was able then to cut them both into two, making four sponges for the filling without any problems. I always use a breadknife when cutting any sponge in half and I find this method to be the best way for this task.

The next step was very delicate layering up with raspberry jam and buttercream, due to the sponges being very light and delicate. The buttercream I found very greasy, but again that is my personnel preference and nothing wrong with the recipe. On a positive note, had there been any gaps in the sponge the buttercream would have covered a multitude of sins. I placed a few strips of thick sweetened coconut on the top for decoration not feeling quite up to piping swirls of cream due my recent illness.

The outcome of Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake, having let the cake stand for the required time for setting, was a most wonderful light and airy cake, and I can fully understand why Dorie choose this for a “Perfect Party Cake”. The flavours mingled perfectly together and the family thought this was a stunning sponge cake and would be a great cake for serving for a dessert at any party too. The recipe can be found in Doire Greenspan’s - Baking From My Home To Yours.

Thank you Morven for hosting this month’s challenge and you can check out other DB creations on the Daring Bakers Blogroll.