For the caramel cake and frosting, you make a caramel syrup, which you then add to what would otherwise be an ordinary butter cake and frosting. Well, the frosting uses brown butter, which is one of my favorite flavors, so perhaps not so ordinary. The result of all of this was an exquisitely colored and flavored cake with a fine crumb and a delicate texture, with a crisp, caramelized crust. The frosting tasted so rich and robust from the brown butter, and had a uniquely sticky texture from the addition of the caramel.
I also got to inaugurate my wonderful cake stand, birthday present from Allie!The second, optional part of the challenge was to make vanilla bean caramels. But, without a candy thermometer, relying on the cold water tests, I ended up rather with vanilla bean toffee. It's delicious, but I had to break it up with a hammer. Oh well.
This fabulous recipe came to us from Shuna Fish Lydon and can be found here. Her DB blog can be found at http://eggbeater.typepad.com. The caramels came from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
This challenge was hosted by Dolores with help from Alex, Jenny, and Natalie.
