An announcement
To the Daring Bakers, do come back tomorrow for the post. I'm making the second batch of the challenge today and it'll be ready tomorrow. Wish me luck!!
Toodles~~
hehe...
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
Daring Bakers's Sweestest Challenge
Daring Bakers did it again!! this time it came back on track from savory (not that I mind savory through) to the awesome sweetness dessert. Sometimes crazily so. In particular this baby I we made this time around. The amount of sugar in this cake could easily gain me a few pounds if I eat the whole cake! Maybe it's because we haven't made such sweet dessert the last couple of months. Anyway, the hostess Dolores from Culinary Curiosity , and Alex of Blondie and Brownie plus Jenny of Foray into Food chose Shuna Fish's Caramel Cake as taken from the Eggbeater. (Hope I got that right)
Well, I have to say this is one challenge where I made it more than once in one month. And I still didn't get it right! (arrgh.. the horror~) let's start with the caramel first as it was the first element that I made (more like ruin). Ever heard of the saying "too many cooks will spoil the soup" ?? or something to that effect. Usually in the kitchen whenever I' baking, there's always some helpers around to clean em up (ain't I lucky?? heheh) Or when my hands are sore from making too much biscuits, there's always someone who'd vollunteer to mix the next batch of bicuits. But when I was making the caramel;
me: ma, tengok nie gule hangus die cam itam gle jeh?
ma, look at the caramel. is it too dark?
mum: laaa.. apesal lame sangat dalam periuk. memang la jadik camtuh
laaa... why did you left it too long in the pan?
me: abes nak buat balik ke?
then should I redo it?
mum: buat la balik
yup
there goes a cup of sugar (through I save it to cemomerate my first failure, ahaha)
while I was making the next batch of caramel
KJ: meh sini aku tengok gule tuh. (took the wooden spoon and start to stir)
come, let me see the caramel
me: eh, resepi die kate jangan kacau!!
eh, the resepi said NOT to stir!!
KJ: lambat sangat, biasekan kite kacau aje..
it's too slow, and we usually just stir it anyway
me: ye la.. tapi nie kan resepi laen (by that time all the sugar have dissolve! gasp!!)
yea, but this is a different resepi
KJ: banyak sangat pulak air die
why's there is so much water?
me: duh.. dah resepi die camtuh.. sebab tuh arahan die laen?
duh... that's according to the resepi, that's why we should follow the instructions.
KJ: biar je. lame2 kunng la die
just let it be. It'll caramelise later
me: *grumbles* Ok
after 15 minutes
me: sume da jadik gule ketol-ketol. aiyooo!!
all the sugar have become lumps!! my mum came,
mum: meh la sini aku buat. korang nie tak reti pulak buat gule hangus.
let me do it. how come you people can't do it properly.
me: then I'll just proceed with the other stuff (i.e; mixing, sifting flour, and creaming the butter)
safe to say, 20 minutes later, we lost our patience and proceed with another batch of caramel, this time, I followed the instructions properly and made a batch of golden caramel.
let it boil by itself. NO STIRRING!!
Right before it turns into caramel
Tadaa!!
then it was time to mix in the caramel.as soon as the caramel touches the creamed butter, the butter melts and then the caramel hardens and become lumpy! arrrghh, sh*&%^%@!#!! I forgot to wait for the caramel to cool down first. Daymed..
And to top it off, this was supposed to be a birthday cake for one of my friend. And another friend was supposed to pick me up in three hours!! Luckily, I still had that one jar of dark caramel I made earlier. I worked with the recipe right down to the frosting. And as many other's had put their frosting on top of the cake, I was thinking of putting it between the cake too. So I cut it into two layers and spread some of the buttercream. But, hey, one pound of confecctioners sugar? that's waaayy too much sugar. Good thing I tasted the cream before proceeding with the frosting. So I imediately scrape of the idea to top the cake with more buttercream. that's just maddness I tell ya.
The naked cake, very dark colour from the caramel
However, this is supposed to be a bithday cake and there's no decorations?So with some impromtu chocolate coating (more like chocolate slab) and some fancy iced writing; behold a birthday cake. not my finest cake, but hey, after a disastrous day in the kitchen, I had to have a break. Good thing it received an okayh from the tasters. Someone said it tasted like pumpkin! hehe.. maybe it was the darkish caramel? who knows.
by the way, I didn't get to take the pictures of the finished product as there were many people at the time and I don't want them to think I'm crazy; taking pictures of a cake at differenrt angles using a pda phone... hahaha..
p/s: the cake plate was home made too (layers of cardbord covered with foil paper). maybe next time I'll do a homemade box too!! ahahahaha...
UPDATE: I noticed that other people seem to have either a very dense cake of a fluffy one. My first cake was very dense as expected ( because we Malaysians also have a version of caramel cake which has a very dense, sponge like texture.) Seeing as others have done such wonderful fluffly ones, I decided to give it a try *erk!!* and this is what I came up with:
A dense layer in the bottom, and a fluffy one on top of it.
Well, I have to say this is one challenge where I made it more than once in one month. And I still didn't get it right! (arrgh.. the horror~) let's start with the caramel first as it was the first element that I made (more like ruin). Ever heard of the saying "too many cooks will spoil the soup" ?? or something to that effect. Usually in the kitchen whenever I' baking, there's always some helpers around to clean em up (ain't I lucky?? heheh) Or when my hands are sore from making too much biscuits, there's always someone who'd vollunteer to mix the next batch of bicuits. But when I was making the caramel;
me: ma, tengok nie gule hangus die cam itam gle jeh?
ma, look at the caramel. is it too dark?
mum: laaa.. apesal lame sangat dalam periuk. memang la jadik camtuh
laaa... why did you left it too long in the pan?
me: abes nak buat balik ke?
then should I redo it?
mum: buat la balik
yup
there goes a cup of sugar (through I save it to cemomerate my first failure, ahaha)
while I was making the next batch of caramel
KJ: meh sini aku tengok gule tuh. (took the wooden spoon and start to stir)
come, let me see the caramel
me: eh, resepi die kate jangan kacau!!
eh, the resepi said NOT to stir!!
KJ: lambat sangat, biasekan kite kacau aje..
it's too slow, and we usually just stir it anyway
me: ye la.. tapi nie kan resepi laen (by that time all the sugar have dissolve! gasp!!)
yea, but this is a different resepi
KJ: banyak sangat pulak air die
why's there is so much water?
me: duh.. dah resepi die camtuh.. sebab tuh arahan die laen?
duh... that's according to the resepi, that's why we should follow the instructions.
KJ: biar je. lame2 kunng la die
just let it be. It'll caramelise later
me: *grumbles* Ok
after 15 minutes
me: sume da jadik gule ketol-ketol. aiyooo!!
all the sugar have become lumps!! my mum came,
mum: meh la sini aku buat. korang nie tak reti pulak buat gule hangus.
let me do it. how come you people can't do it properly.
me: then I'll just proceed with the other stuff (i.e; mixing, sifting flour, and creaming the butter)
safe to say, 20 minutes later, we lost our patience and proceed with another batch of caramel, this time, I followed the instructions properly and made a batch of golden caramel.
let it boil by itself. NO STIRRING!!
Right before it turns into caramel
Tadaa!!And to top it off, this was supposed to be a birthday cake for one of my friend. And another friend was supposed to pick me up in three hours!! Luckily, I still had that one jar of dark caramel I made earlier. I worked with the recipe right down to the frosting. And as many other's had put their frosting on top of the cake, I was thinking of putting it between the cake too. So I cut it into two layers and spread some of the buttercream. But, hey, one pound of confecctioners sugar? that's waaayy too much sugar. Good thing I tasted the cream before proceeding with the frosting. So I imediately scrape of the idea to top the cake with more buttercream. that's just maddness I tell ya.
However, this is supposed to be a bithday cake and there's no decorations?So with some impromtu chocolate coating (more like chocolate slab) and some fancy iced writing; behold a birthday cake. not my finest cake, but hey, after a disastrous day in the kitchen, I had to have a break. Good thing it received an okayh from the tasters. Someone said it tasted like pumpkin! hehe.. maybe it was the darkish caramel? who knows.
by the way, I didn't get to take the pictures of the finished product as there were many people at the time and I don't want them to think I'm crazy; taking pictures of a cake at differenrt angles using a pda phone... hahaha..
p/s: the cake plate was home made too (layers of cardbord covered with foil paper). maybe next time I'll do a homemade box too!! ahahahaha...
UPDATE: I noticed that other people seem to have either a very dense cake of a fluffy one. My first cake was very dense as expected ( because we Malaysians also have a version of caramel cake which has a very dense, sponge like texture.) Seeing as others have done such wonderful fluffly ones, I decided to give it a try *erk!!* and this is what I came up with:
A dense layer in the bottom, and a fluffy one on top of it.Guess I'll have to try again! but not in the near future *sigh*
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
