Saturday, November 29, 2008

Daring Bakers - Caramel Cake


At first glance you may think that these are just more cupcakes, but these delicious Caramel Cupcakes are the Daring Baker challenge for November. The Caramel Cake with caramelised butter icing was chosen by Dolores of Culinary Curiosity and her co-hosts Alex of Blonde and Brownie and jenny of Foray Into Food. The recipe is courtesy of Shuna Fish Lydon and you can find it here.

We were allowed to make our cake in whatever shape we wanted, the only requirement being to include make the cake recipe and also the caramelised butter icing. The first step was to make the caramel which was the base for both the cake and the icing. This was made simple by boiling sugar and water until it turned a dark amber colour, then pouring in more water to make a thick golden syrup like caramel syrup. The instructions were to wear long sleeves because the caramel splutters a lot. It was a warm day here (we are definitely heading into summer!) and I was wearing a singlet top. Luckily I am fairly hardy and the bits of caramel that spluttered up (some onto my neck!) didn’t burn.




The cake was made in the usual way, with the caramel added. You could be forgiven in thinking that these cakes look very plain, but the taste was absolutely delicious! They tasted like little golden syrup steamed pudding! The icing was so yummy as well. You made it by cooking butter until it turned a nut brown colour – this adds real depth of flavour. You then beat in the icing sugar and some of the caramel syrup. This is so good! It has a real caramel flavour. I used the rest of the caramel syrup to drizzle over the cakes. I was hoping that this would set into a little round drizzle pattern, but it kind of melted all over the top of the cakes. Still, it tasted great!


The builders and blocklayers got most of these cakes and by all accounts, they went down well. My husband, Mum and I all loved them too, so I will definitely be making them again!!!



See how the other Daring Bakers cakes turned out here.

17 comments:

Megan said...

I love the cupcake liners! I almost made cupcakes, to control portions! :) Great challenge!

Di said...

Great job on this month's challenge! I thought about making cupcakes, but ended up going with a 9-inch cake that I cut into layers. Glad to hear that you all enjoyed it so much. =)

Anonymous said...

Glad you liked them. Your cupcake liners are darling.

Jacque said...

Mmm, they look pretty decadent with the caramel syrup on top. Yum!

Cute cupcake papers too :)

Isabelle Lambert said...

vraiment super ! où achètes tu tes caissettes en papier ? elles sont vraiment extra jolies :)

Speedbump Kitchen said...

Yum! I love the caramel on top, and I love your cupcake liners!

Engineer Baker said...

Such pretty little cakes! Definitely sounds like a winner.

Gretchen Noelle said...

Wonderful cupcakes! Glad to hear that you liked them so much you would make them again!!

Cakelaw said...

I love your litte cupcakes with the extra syrup on top - they look delicious. I loved this cake recipe too. Glad that you didn't get burned by the caramel - in true fraidy cat form, even though it was warmish, I put on jeans under my dress and a fleecy cardigan over the top and pulled down the sleeves!

Susan @ My Wholefood Family Essentials said...

They look gorgeous! Great idea to make cupcakes.

Anonymous said...

How very cute! I didn't even think to make these cupcakes but they are so adorable in cupcake form :)

Heather B said...

great job! The cupcakes look delicious!

Snooky doodle said...

Nice cupcakes :)I bet they were delicious

Jacque said...

Hello again :)

You had asked how I got the icing effect on the side of my caramel cake... here's what I did. I tried to smooth the icing as well as I could. I made sure I had a thick enough layer of icing. I placed my cake on my turntable. I took the end of my offset spatula (http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=3E31007C-475A-BAC0-57674AD17E10E814&killnav=1)and put it approximately perpendicular to the side of the cake, and starting at the bottom, I pressed a small groove into the side of the cake as I rotated the turntable. As I rotated, I moved the spatula up the side of the cake. Then, same thing on the top, I just pressed the end of the spatula into the icing a little bit and turned my turntable and kept spiraling inward until I got to the center.

OK, hopefully that makes sense. It's always harder to describe in words than to show someone. I should have taken pictures of that part.

Anonymous said...

These look unbelievable Tamny - those builders will NEVER finish the job if you keep giving them such delights - and I bet they aren't very hungry when they get home for their dinner. Raewyn

TeaLady said...

Your cupcakes look great. Lots of us made them. Much better in small quantities. Good job.

Dolores said...

Ouch. I'm glad you didn't really hurt yourself with the caramel. Thanks for baking with us back in November. :)