Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting
I thought I posted this a week ago, on time for the challenge, but for some reason it seems that it disappeared for a while. So here it is again, now very late!
For Thanksgiving this year, we decided to go a little less traditional than usual. There were only four of us — my parents’ and Matt and me — so we realized that if we did our usual cook a turkey plus a whole bunch of side dishes plus two pies, we’d be eating the leftovers for weeks. More details on how we decided to change it up will be coming in the next couple days. But to finish off the meal, I made a pear cranberry pie and this month’s Daring Bakers’ recipe — a caramel cake, with the recipe from Shuna Fish Lydon of eggbeater.
In fact, I had my doubts about this cake. I tend to like cakes with stronger flavors, but this cake is more subtle, with a caramel syrup to flavor the cake itself, and brown butter and more caramel syrup to flavor the frosting. I was also worried that all that caramel might just make the cake overly sweet, and after what I knew would be a big meal, I wasn’t sure we would want something too cloying. Also, there were warnings from Shuna that previous bakers had found this cake tricky — she says that “getting this cake to bake is about balancing fat with acid and protein JUST RIGHT”. And then, when I made the caramel syrup, I reduced it too much, so I’m sure I ended up adding less moisture to the cake than I should’ve, since the syrup was so thick.
However, I needn’t have worried at all. This cake was really delicious! It was sweet enough, but it wasn’t at all cloying as I had feared. The texture is really nice — somewhat dense, with a pretty tight crumb, and also very moist. And the brown butter frosting was delicious. Cooking the butter first really adds subtlety to the flavor of the frosting; I will remember that trick in the future. And I just frosted the cake with a pretty thin layer on the top, so that helped keep it from getting too sweet as well. (Need to think of a use for a bunch of leftover frosting…) This cake was definitely a success and one I would make again.
The only thing I would do differently is in making the caramel syrup. I would cook the sugar a little longer — it didn’t get quite dark enough, but I’m always scared I’m going to burn sugar — and I wouldn’t reduce it as long so that it wasn’t quite so thick. I think if the caramel cooked a little longer, the flavor would be more pronounced in the final cake. Overall, I highly recommend this cake. Despite Shuna’s warnings, this cake came together pretty easily for me, with delicious results!
So enthusiastic thanks to Dolores, Alex, and Jenny for choosing this recipe, and to Shuna for her multitude of advice on making her cake. And check out the blogroll to see everyone else’s caramel cake.
Oh, and go here for the recipe … Don’t leave out the browned butter frosting. You won’t be sorry.
Tags: Daring Bakers, Dessert
