Daring Bakers: Caramel

(An open letter to my sister)

Dear Liz,

I know that Jared's birthday is coming up in a few weeks. You always make that caramel cake that he loves, but it's time for a new recipe. No more gummy caramel frosting that is sometimes a bit too granular. This month, the Daring Bakers have been experimenting with caramel.

I made the Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting by Shuna Fish Lydon (http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2006/12/24/caramel-cake-the-recipe/). This month's challenge was hosted by http://culinarycuriosity.blogspot.com/, with Alex of http://blondieandbrownie.blogspot.com/, Jenny of (http://forayintofood.blogspot.com/) and Natalie (http://glutenagogo.blogspot.com/). I also made the Golden Vanilla Bean caramels from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich, Artisan Press, Copyright 2007, ISBN: 978-1579652111

The cake was wonderful. Moist, great crumb and a really nice depth of caramel flavor. I added some orange peel to the frosting recipe to change up the taste just a little bit. I drizzled the cake with some of the caramel sauce that I made from the caramels.

Now those vanilla bean caramels. 2/3s of the pan is sitting in a hard rock on my kitchen counter. They were tough to cut, despite cooking only to the softer caramel stage. By serving them, I felt like I was asking my friends to plan for future dental work. The caramels had great flavor, and I think that they'll melt down nicely with some butter and cream into a caramel ice cream syrup. If you've been nice instead of naughty, you'll get a jar for Christmas :)

Later,
Whit