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This month's challenge was caramel cake with an optional addition to make homemade caramel candies.
I opted to make the cake into cupcakes and mini cakes. I had friends over for dinner last week and so I made three mini cakes for us, one of which is pictured. I had left over praline from the DB challenge a few months ago and so I grated that on top.
I enjoyed the texture of this cake, although I wasn't that big fan of the flavor. Caramel isn't a favorite. Many participants had complained that the cake and frosting were too sweet and so I did reduce the sugar in the cake down to only one cup. For the frosting it called for a pound of powdered sugar but I just made it to consistency, which was way less than a pound.
More interesting was the caramels.
I had two complications with the caramels. First, I didn't pay close enough attention to the recipe which said to use a large 3 qt pan. Turns out that the caramel boils violently up and I almost had it boil over my too small pan! Secondly, it took FOREVER to reach the 260 degree temp for soft caramels. Later I read others suggesting to stop at 248 degrees. Anyway, my caramels are a little harder than I would have liked (about the same as Brach's), but still great little morsels. They are sprinkled with fresh ground sea salt on top. Took them to work and everyone loved them.
Our host of the month is Dolores ably assisted by Alex (Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo), Jenny of Foray into Food. With gluten free advice from Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go. The recipe author was Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater . Shuna's recipe is for the cake with caramalized butter frosting is here.
