November Challenge: Caramel Cake

This month’s daring baker challenge was to make this delicious caramel cake with caramelized butter frosting. November’s challenge was hosted by Dolores (http://culinarycuriosity.blogspot.com/) Alex (Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo: http://blondieandbrownie.blogspot.com/), Jenny of Foray into Food (http://forayintofood.blogspot.com/), with the gluten-free help of Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go (http://glutenagogo.blogspot.com/).

The challenge recipe Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting is courtesy of Shuna Fish Lydon (http://eggbeater.typepad.com/), as published on Bay Area Bites (http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/). and the optional item this month (which unfortunately I did not have the time to create) Golden Vanilla Bean Caramels from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich, Artisan Press, Copyright 2007, ISBN: 978-1579652111

You can check out all of the daring baker’s challenge results by browsing the daring bakers blog roll here.

Now for the unveiling…

Piece of cake?

I must say that I really enjoyed making this cake. The recipe was easy to follow and I love making caramel. I was particularly happy to make this cake because I had originally planned to take the cake to a volunteering event working with a women’s shelter here in Paris (which was so exciting to me because I think that volunteering would be a great way to reach out to people in the community), sadly the cake never made it to the event. I went to where the event was supposed to be meeting and no one was there. I asked at the front desk and the person looked at me like I was crazy and said that she had no idea what I was talking about. I was sad that I couldn’t share my cake. Luckily Benoit was able to take the cake to work to share with his co-workers, who have become accustomed to eating homemade baked goods on a regular basis thanks to all the stuff I bring home from school.

The french verdict: While they devoured the croquembouche (none other than choux pastry encrusted in globs of hardened amber colored caramel aka cooked sugar), they found the caramel cake and its frosting to be too sweet. I immediately took offense because I can be too sensitive sometimes with my cooking, especially trying to make cakes that appeal to the difficult french palate. Then I realized that I was being too hard on myself and remembered that in most cases when I am eating a heavily iced cake, I almost always find the icing too sweet and eat only the cake. That being said I also doubled the frosting recipe so that I could make a layer cake since I only had a couple cake circles of 16cm x 6cm, and 14cm x 4 1/2cm instead of the 9-inch cake pan as specified in the recipe.

Overall, great recipe. Even though the frosting was very sweet the nut brown butter gave it a great flavor.