Supernatural

Wow. Wow. Wow. Burnt sugar ice cream. So good it renders you speechless. Creamy, salty, sweet waves of frozen fabulousness. Perfection in a bowl and so simple to make. Burn your sugar. Add milk, cream, egg yolks and a pinch of salt and stir until an addictively delicious custard forms. Chill, churn, devour. Ice cream this good just isn't natural- it's supernatural.

Let me take a moment to profess my love for Becky for making this her TWD pick. Can I wash your car? Do your laundry? I owe you big for bringing Burnt Sugar Ice Cream into my life.
"...Oh my god, this changes everything..."
-Art Bell, Coast To Coast

Lavender Is Food

My sister-in-law loves caramel. She also loves lavender. Her affection for these items are documented here and here. For her birthday present, lavender fleur de sel caramels were the obvious choice.

Happy Birthday Beth!

Lavender Fleur de Sel Caramels
adapted from Epicurious
1 cup heavy cream
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon lavender fleur de sel
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup1/4 cup water

1 tbs culinary lavender, chopped and additional fleur de sel for sprinkling on top of caramel.

Line bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper, then oil parchment. Bring cream, butter, and fleur de sel to a boil in a small saucepan, remove from heat and set aside.

Boil sugar, corn syrup, and water in a heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil, without stirring but gently swirling pan, until desired shade of caramel is reached.

Carefully stir in cream mixture and simmer, stirring frequently, until caramel registers 248°F on thermometer. Pour into baking pan and cool 2 hours. Cut into 1-inch pieces, then wrap each piece in a square of parchment paper.

Picking Up The Slack

Last post September 15. Serious blog neglect? Guilty as charged.
It's not that I haven't been baking, it's that with 2 part time jobs I either haven't been baking at home or I haven't had the time to photograph it before it was consumed. Last week, I actually had a small sliver of time to make the Chocolate Crunched Caramel Tart for a friend's potluck. It came out great and went over like gangbusters but it's fabulousness went undocumented here. After reading about everyone's experiences at Blogher Food (sign me up for '10) , it's time for me to redirect my energies in the direction of this site which means less talk, more pudding. Specifically this week's TWD, Split Level Pudding.


With no actually baking involved, I felt I should at least try something new and made Milk Chocolate Caramel Pudding. Back in the days before I realized how easy and utterly awesome homemade pudding is, I used to buy those Jello pudding cups all the time. Never again.
To make the ganache I substituted good quality milk chocolate chips for the bittersweet chocolate and let it set up at room temperature. The caramel pudding is adapted from a recipe pulled from Food & Wine. My recipe binder is currently overflowing with a glut of torn magazine pages, some of them so old the ingredients are out of season!
Milk Chocolate Caramel Pudding was a great place to start.

Caramel Pudding
adapted from F&W, March '09
1 quart whole milk
1/4 cup plus 3 tbsp corn starch
2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch fleur de sel
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp water
1 tbsp butter, at room temperature

Whisk together 1/2 cup milk, corn starch, vanilla and salt and set aside. In a large saucepan combine sugar and water and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Do not stir. Allow sugar to cook until it turns a deep amber color. Remove from heat and gradually whisk in the remaining milk. Be careful as it may sputter and foam up quite a bit. Put back on the heat and whisk until the caramel dissolves into the milk. Reduce to a simmer until slightly thickened and darker in color. Remove from the heat to whisk in the cornstarch mixture then cook over medium heat until pudding is very thick- this takes about a minute. Strain pudding into a food processor and pulse a few times. Add the butter and pulse again until smooth. Pour into ramekins, cover the surface with plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled.

Any Requests

Due to my voracious baking habit (and appetite) I am always on the lookout for new victims, er I mean tasters, so I can bake without the burden of the final product remaining in my house. Often times, I sneak an offer for baked goods into casual conversation.

Looking at my blog...

Him: These look great, do you have any of this stuff here?

Me: As a matter of fact I do. Can offer you some...insert name of recently made treat here...

Him: Sure I'd love some.

Me: Hey, by the way, what's your favorite dessert?

Then whammo, guess who's getting a heaping helping of sugary goodness from your truly?!

On today's menu, Caramel Crumb Bars from The Modern Baker. Shortbread crust covered in a layer of creamy caramel with crumb topping. Perfect for someone who loves cookies and creamy treats. This one's for you Bob.

Caramel Crunch Bars

I had never even heard of the Freshman 15...until they happened to me. For this I point the finger at three evil men, Ben, Jerry, and Heath; as in Ben & Jerry's Heath Bar Crunch ice cream. Regularly consuming a pint at 3am directly resulted in the expansion of my waistline. You'd think someone would have warned me. My good pal Little Caesar was strangely mum on the subject.
Anywho... this weeks TWD, Caramel Crunch Bars, felt so very familiar. A brown sugar shortbread crust, covered with a layer of milk chocolate and topped off with chopped Heath bar. I couldn't find the toffee bits so I bought mini bars and beat them into submission with a hammer. A little payback for those 15 pounds.
Luckily the older and wiser me knew well enough to keep the reunion brief. A little snack, then straight into the freezer only to be brought out and dispersed at my cousin's birthday party. Heath loves making new friends.

Oh Baby! Caramel Thumbprint Cookies

One of my best friends, my sister-in-law, is not a huge fan of sweets. While I always need to end a meal with a treat, she was content to satisfy her sugar cravings with alcohol. However, now that she is pregnant, she has had to resign herself to soothing her sweet tooth in a more conventional way. I've been fielding lots of baking tech support calls from her about cookie and cake recipes and our cocktail hours have turned into afternoon baking parties. Yesterday we got together to recreate a cookie she'd been craving, Caramel Thumbprint Cookies.


The recipe comes from Linda Currie, a nurse and baker, and all around great lady. Buttery shortbread filled with creamy melted caramel and topped with chopped pecans, these cookies can tame even the most aggressive pregnancy craving. That and a jar of horseradish pickles!

Linda Currie's Caramel Thumbprint Cookies
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 cup flour
23 Kraft caramels
3 tbsp heavy cream
1/3 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350F. Beat butter and sugar together until creamy. Stir in flour, salt, powdered sugar, and vanilla until well combined. Roll small pieces of dough into balls and make an indentation in the center if each ball with your knuckle or thumb, making sure to smooth out the dough around each crater with your fingers. Place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 15 minutes. If the thumbprint you made has disappeared while baking, gently press your knuckle into the still warm cookies, then cool on a rack.
While the cookies cool, combine the caramels and heavy cream in a microwave safe bowl and cook on high at 30 second intervals until the caramels have melted. Stir well, then using a teaspoon fill each thumbprint with the caramel mixture. Top cookies with a few pecan pieces.

The Madness That Is... Caramel Cake

Seriously, this month's Daring Bakers challenge Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting should really come with a warning label. A decadent, crazy moist, dense cake infused with caramel syrup- one could easily stop there and have a lovely rich dessert. But no, those envelope pushing Daring Bakers had to take it one step further with not just any butter cream, but one made from copious amounts of browned butter, a pound of powdered sugar, and more caramel syrup! Oh the humanity!


This cake was so rich, even my husband could only handle one slice. It was definitely way sweeter than the desserts I normally make, but the cake itself was outstanding in texture and moistness and truly I could not stop eating it.

Many thanks to Dolores, Alex, Jenny and Natalie for hosting this month. Feeling daring yourself? Try Shuna Fish Lydon's signature caramel cake recipe for yourself. You can find it here. But don't say I didn't warn you.