Caramel is one of my all-time favourite flavours, so when I saw that this month’s Daring Bakers challenge was a sumptuous old-style caramel cake, I was thrilled.  I even clapped my hands with glee.  Really.  Okay, so maybe I was a little tipsy when I read the announcement, but even stone-cold sober the next morning I was still v.excited.

This month, our lovely hosts Dolores, Alex, Jenny and Natalie have chosen Shuna Fish Lydon’s signature caramel cake.  Shuna, of Eggbeater fame, is a San Francisco London based pastry chef with a wonderfully relaxed style of writing.  Shuna has had a glittering career in pastry, having worked at The Gramercy Tavern, The French Laundry and Bouchon.  Wow!

So, with that kind of pedigree in mind, I must admit that I was a little intimidated when I saw that Shuna considered this a difficult cake.  When a pastry chef describes something as difficult, that’s just plain scary to a home cook.  Nevertheless, I happily dived in headfirst.

So, let’s start at the very beginning.  A very good place to start…

The caramel syrup was fairly easy to make, once I sorted out the horrendous crystalisation that occurred halfway through.  I inadvertently knocked some crystals down from the side of the pan while stirring the pale gold caramel—I’ve never seen crystals seed so quickly!  Turning out the heat and mashing the crystals until the syrup felt smooth under the spatula seemed to sort it out, and then I just turned the heat on full again and let the caramel boil until it reached a gorgeous dark amber, almost the colour of treacle.  Because Shuna instructed us to cook the caramel until it was smoking, the house filled with the most gorgeous burnt caramel scent.

Once it was the right colour—and smell—I hurriedly pulled my sleeves down and threw on my oven gloves.  With the heat off, and the pan lid on and slightly adjar, I poured in the extra water to “stop” the caramel from going any further.   I expected the caramel to sieze but it all dissolved into a smooth syrup straight away.  I boiled it for a further three minutes, checked the consistency on a spoon and let it cool to room temperature.  Once cooled, the consistency was somewhere between maple and Golden syrup when it fell from a spoon.  Sweet, slightly bitter, slightly burnt and quite irresistable.

One thing I’ve noted over the last month is that “dark amber” is a really subjective colour.  I’ve seen syrups that are barely blonde in colour, and no one else’s seems to have been as dark as mine!  But, I chose to take the caramel as far as possible until it really did smoke as I figured that it was the primary flavour of the cake so it had to be as intense as possible.  I would have loved to have seen a picture of the syrup as prepared by Shuna, but then I would probably have wondered if my monitor was showing the true colour!  So, yes.  Colour is very subjective.

For the cake, I made certain to follow all of Shuna’s hints and tips.  I even got Dave to adjust the head on my KitchenAid to make sure it was mixing properly—it’s been knocking for a little while, but apparently I’ve been trying to adjust the wrong screw.  Ooops.

I loved trickling the dark, dark syrup into the creamed butter and sugar, changing it in an instant from ivory fluff to a sexy dark gold.  I was so tempted to throw in more and more of the syrup, and I probably would, if not making this for a challenge.  (I’d reduce the milk to compensate, though.)

The batter did break when I was adding the milk, so I stopped, scraped down the sides and then added the next portion of the flour which made it recover nicely.  I went cautiously when adding the remainder of the milk and ended up leaving a couple of tablespoons behind as I felt it just wouldn’t recover if I added the whole amount.  Sometimes you just have to use your intuition when baking, and the amount of milk you’ll need very much depends on the flour you use.

What I should have done, was make a slight well in the centre of the cake batter before baking it.  When I turned it round, half-way through baking, it was very well risen in the centre with a cracked peak, so the oven was most likely too hot.  I gnashed my teeth and tried to ignore it.

But, ignore it, I could not.  It preyed on my mind all night and the next morning found me back in the kitchen whipping up a second cake.  Which came out exactly the same, even though I went off-piste slightly and chose to bake the cake without a sheet pan underneath.  Luckily, I’d been conservative and halved the recipe each time otherwise I could have been quite annoyed.

So, what was meant to be a simple and conservative caramel cake turned into a four layer extravaganza.  I really should have put more frosting between each layer, but I wanted to make the top all swirly and pretty, hence it only looks like a two layer cake until you cut a slice.  I like to think of it as a stealth cake.

Four layers of caramel madness

The caramel flavour was intense, but with an edge to it which I can only attribute to cooking the caramel so dark.  This was not a bad thing—we loved it!  None of us found the cake to be too sweet, which is something I was really worried about after reading comments on the DB forums.

I can’t say enough good things about the frosting.  Using browned butter was an absolute stroke of genius and you could control the thickness of the frosting by leaving the butter more on the liquid side or letting it set up again.  So, glaze or buttercream.  Like I said, genius.  Before I started adding the caramel syrup, I knew this was going to be fabulous and I wasn’t wrong.  To adjust the seasoning I used Maldon sea salt and crushed up the flakes randomly so that there would be the occasional salty hit in there as well as a gloriously slightly salted caramel taste.  This was so incredibly, wonderfully, amazingly good!  I’ll be happily slathering this frosting over pumpkin cupcakes in the future.   I suppose it might be considered excessive to make a big bowl just for my own gluttonous needs?  Shame.  It’s seriously good.

I am so pleased to have finally tried out one of Shuna’s recipes.  This is a wonderful cake that I will happily—oh, so very happily—make again.  Perhaps even for my birthday…

Don’t forget to check out The Daring Bakers Blogroll to see the other amazing caramel creations!
Shuna Fish Lydon’s Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting

Name of cookbook: Shuna Fish Lydon as published on Bay Area Bites
Author: Shuna Fish Lydon
Our hostesses: Dolores, Alex, Jenny and Natalie

Makes one 7″ cake

75g unsalted butter, room temperature
125g caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
40ml caramel syrup (see recipe below)
1 large egg, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
140g plain flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
125ml full-fat milk, room temperature

Preheat oven to 180C (fan oven 160C).

Butter one tall (2 – 2.5 inch deep) 7-inch cake pan.  A 6″ tin will make for a taller, more dramatic cake, but it might look a little mean.)

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and salt & cream until light and fluffy.

Slowly pour room temperature caramel syrup into bowl. Scrape down bowl and increase speed. Add eggs/vanilla extract a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform.

Adding the caramel syrup

Sift flour and baking powder.

Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add half of the milk, a little at a time. Add another third of the dry ingredients, then the other half of the milk and finish with the dry ingredients. (This is called the dry, wet, dry, wet, dry method in cake making. It is often employed when there is a high proportion of liquid in the batter.)

Take off mixer and by hand, use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure batter is uniform. Turn batter into prepared cake pan.

Place cake pan on cookie sheet or 1/2 sheet pan. Set first timer for 20 minutes, rotate pan and set timer for another 10-15 minutes. Your own oven will set the pace. Bake until sides pull away from the pan and skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool cake completely before icing it.

Cake will keep for three days outside of the refrigerator.

CARAMEL SYRUP

200g caster sugar
60ml water
125ml water (for “stopping” the caramelisation process)

In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix 60ml water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber.

When colour is achieved, very carefully pour in 125ml of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back.

Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.}

Note: For safety reasons, have ready a bowl of ice water to plunge your hands into if any caramel should land on your skin.

CARAMELIZED BUTTER FROSTING

90g unsalted butter
225g icing sugar, sifted
2-3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-2 tablespoons caramel syrup
coarse sea salt to taste (I used Maldon)

Cook butter over medium heat until brown. Pour through a fine meshed sieve into a heatproof bowl, set aside to cool.

Pour cooled brown butter into mixer bowl.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, add confectioner’s sugar a little at a time. When mixture looks too chunky to take any more, add a bit of cream and or caramel syrup. Repeat until mixture looks smooth and all confectioner’s sugar has been incorporated. Add salt to taste.

Note: Caramelized butter frosting will keep in fridge for up to a month.  To smooth out from cold, microwave a bit, then mix with paddle attachment until smooth and light.