Tag Archives: caramel

The Best Blondies

31 Aug

utter perfectionThis is my 100th post! Hooray! I never thought I had the discipline or the strength of purpose to actually commit to sit down and write a recipe a day, no matter what is happening or where I am. I have to say, I am impressed with myself 😉 Long may it continue 🙂 Today, in celebration of this personal milestone, I decided to try a new recipe. I love blondies. I am not so hot on brownies to be honest. They are too overwhelming – that mix between fudgy and crusty, and intense intense chocolate. I dont know what it is, but I like chocolate in almost all ways, but brownies are probably 100th on the list (keeping with the 100th theme!)

But blondies are another story entirely. Studded with chocolate, but not overwhelmed by fudge dough, blondies are chic brownies – brownies with an edge. I used Callebut white and milk chocolate here. Chopped it into chunks and mixed it with a caramelised vanilla batter. It baked shiny and crispy, with edges that were brown and crunchy, but with interiors that were the best of melted chocolate and soft vanilla cookies. Sooo good. Delicious, delectable, and amazingly easy. It took me about 20 minutes to put everything together, and another 20 – 25 to bake. Do not overbake these! They need to be cooked (and when you stick a knife in, they can be squishy, but not liquid), but if you overbake, they will get stone hard and yucky.

I adapted these blondies from a recipe on the Cook’s Illustrated website. I dont do nuts with my sweet baked goods (well on very rare occasions, but thats the exception rather than the rule). I dont know by, but its true. By the by, I also dislike chocolate and orange or lemon. Just does not do it for me. We each have our own tastes, and especially in brownies or blondies, I am a no nuts kind of person. Oh and in carrot cake, but thats another story. Anyway! The Cook’s Illustrated recipe required 1 cup of toasted pecans for these blondies. If you like nuts, toast some pecans (or walnuts or cashews, go crazy with it) and substitute the nuts for 1 cup of chocolate. Otherwise, do as I do, and revel in both milk and white chocolate 🙂

The other major thing I did was I let the butter burn a little as I melted it. I remembered the recipe for the best chocolate chip cookies ever, and how the butter, burnt to a dark brown, added a depth of flavour to the cookies. Well, I didnt burn the butter to that extent, but I let it get a little toasty. Just a hint of light brown colour. It worked really well in the finished product – the blondies had a deep caramelised flavour that came from the union of slightly burnt butter, light brown sugar, vanilla and eggs. Sublime.

This recipe will fit into a 14″ x 8″ pan. Make sure that you double line the pan with aluminum foil, and allow some foil overhang. This lets you lift out the cooled blondies easily. Also, butter that foil to within an inch of its life! With all that caramelisation going on, you want to be able to lift the blondies out easily, and buttering well really does help.

For 1 pan of totally delectable blondies, you will need:

  • 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 12 tbsp butter (1 1/2 sticks), melted, slightly burnt, and then cooled + 1 tbsp for buttering
  • 1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 4 – 6 tsp vanilla essence
  • 2 cups best quality chocolate, chopped, chunks or if you have to, chips (I used 1 cup Callebaut white + 1 cup milk chocolate, chopped)

Preheat your oven to 175C. Prepare your baking pan. Line a 14″ x 8 ” pan (at least 2 – 3″ deep), with double layer of aluminum foil. Allow some overhang, and push it well into the corners. Use 1 tbsp of butter and butter the foil extremely well. Set aside.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Use a fork to mix well together. Set aside.

Melt butter in a saucepan, and allow to burn just a little bit. You want it to foam, subside, and then just start turning light brown. Take off heat and allow to cool.

Meanwhile, in another small bowl, whisk together 2 eggs and 4 – 6 tsp of vanilla. You will know how much vanilla to use, depending on the quality of the vanilla you have. Your judgement is important here, but remember you want a strong vanilla taste. Its the main flavour of the blondie, and you want it to come out well. Set aside the eggs and vanilla.

In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter and brown sugar. Add the egg mixture and whisk well. You will have a glossy, shiny, almost caramel like batter. Taste for vanilla and adjust if need be.

Fold the flour in gently, in three parts. Dont overmix. Fold in the chocolate (or the chocolate and pecans if you are so inclined). Using a spatula or wooden spoon, coax the batter into the baking pan. Spread it around to make sure that the entire pan is filled. It may not look like much, but heat is magic – it will puff up the batter and create a phenomenal blondie.

Bake in the centre of the oven for 20 – 25 minutes, checking a few minutes before hand to make sure they have not overbaked. The top will be shiny, slightly cracked, and light brown. A toothpick stuck into the blondie will come out with crumbs sticking to it – but if it comes out covered in batter, it needs more time.

yummmOnce done, take out of oven and allow to cool in pan for at least 20 minutes or so. Use the aluminum foil to remove the blondies from the pan, and cut into squares. The tops will be crisp and crackly, the bottoms will be golden and the centres will be squishy and vanilla-y and bursting with melted chocolate. Serve with vanilla ice cream if you want to be overly decadent.

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Carrot Cake (The Best EVER)

30 Jul

Carrot Cake from heaven I cant tell you how much I love this cake. It looks like a huge effort but if you break it down into its component parts, and you start at least two days in advance, it’s a doddle.

The recipe for this cake comes from the Frog Commissary Cookbook – probably my favourite cookbook of all times. My first version was so battered, I could barely read the recipes anymore, but it didn’t matter – I had cooked the food so often, I kind of knew what needed to go in and where. Steven Poses totally innovated the Philadelphia food scene, and this cookbook really highlights easy, casual, scrumptious American cooking.

This carrot cake is something that once you make, every single person who has tasted it will ask you when you are making it again. You will become known for this cake, and you will be begged for the recipe. It will become your signature, and people will talk of you and the carrot cake together, in the same hushed awed tones. Its really that good!

As a breakfast after cooking a feast, it is a sublime cooks treat. It’s a pain to make in one go because there are so many steps, but easy enough if you cook the caramel stuffing and assemble the cream cheese frosting a day or two before hand. The cake can be baked the night before, and everything put together on the day. Seriously, this recipe will become something which will bring you fame, and depending on who you serve it to, may be even love! Heh.

We have the opportunity here to look at how our shopping choices affect the taste of our food. Its carrot cake. PLEASE buy organic carrots for this. It will make a world of difference. Get the slightly more expensive French butter if you can for the frosting – but you can use the cheaper butter for the caramel stuffing. If you are watching your budget, these things are important. Because the frosting is butter, cream cheese and vanilla, whipped together and uncooked, the actual flavour of the butter is very important. Because you cook the butter into the sugar for the caramel stuffing, the flavour gets muted and changes, and thus does not have so much responsibility.

I have made changes to the original recipe.  I hate nuts in dessert. I don’t know why, I just do. I love nuts but don’t mix them with chocolate or cake or brownies for me. They interfere with the original taste, and don’t do anything to add to it.

In this carrot cake, especially, I don’t like anything to interfere with its smooth unctuousness. There is something so luscious about how this cake feels in the mouth that nuts just interfere with the sensual experience for me.

I have taken out the pecans in the cake and the caramel stuffing – add in if you like nuts. Ugh.

I have also added mixed-spice as I like the low musky note it adds, and I have upped the cinnamon as I don’t think you can ever have enough cinnamon!

Serves 16 – 20

This cake is most easily made if you start it at least one day ahead, preferably two, since the caramel filling, for one thing, is best left to chill overnight, and the cake needs at least a day or so to firm up. The different components can be made even up to several days in advance and stored separately until you are ready to assemble the cake (as early as the night before you will serve it).

Caramel Stuffing

(This is the “stuffing” of the carrot cake – between the two layers of cake).

  • 1 1/2 cups sugar (I use a mix of white sugar, vanilla sugar and organic brown sugar – 1/2 a cup each)
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 cups heavy cream (I use the pouring cream you can buy in the long life milk cartons)
  • 6 ounces (3/4 cup) butter (I use salted – but you can use unsalted)
  • 2-3 teaspoons vanilla extract (or more – depending on your taste)
  • 1 tsp to 1 tbsp Maldon or Fleur de sel to sprinkle over the stuffing
  • OPTIONAL: 1 1/4 cups chopped pecans (I dont use nuts in this cake because I dont like cake with nuts, but feel free to add them if you like. You can use walnuts, or even dried coconut if you like).

In a very heavy saucepan, blend well the sugar(s), flour and salt.

Gradually stir in the cream. Make sure they are blended – the dry ingredients will slowly absorb the cream. Leave this for a few minutes to let the sugar really melt into the cream.

Chop up the butter and add to the saucepan.

Put the saucepan on low heat and stir as the butter melts. You will see the butter getting absorbed into the creamy mixture as it melts.

Once the butter is absorbed, stir in 1 teaspoon of the vanilla.

Simmer the mixture for 20 – 30 minutes (up to an hour depending on the heat), stirring occasionally. It will start to pop and sizzle. Make sure you stir so the bottom and sides of the pan get scraped down.

Once the caramel is golden brown to nut brown in colour (again, depending on your taste), and the mixture is thick, take off the heat and cool to lukewarm.

Add the remaining vanilla (I usually add at least another teaspoon because of how weak the vanilla is in Malaysia), and the nuts or coconut if you are using them (don’t!).

Let cool completely and refrigerate, preferably overnight. If its too thick to spread when you are ready to assemble the components, let it warm a little to spreading consistency. Just before spreading, sprinkle the Maldon or Fleur de sel over the caramel.

Any extra is SUPERB with vanilla ice cream as a topping.

Carrot Cake

  • 1 1/4 cups corn or other clear light vegetable oil
  • 2 cups sugar (I use a mixture of white and organic brown)
  • 2 cups flour
  • 3 -4  teaspoons cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoons mixed spice
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 4 eggs
  • 4 cups grated carrots (about 1/2 kilo bag) – if you dont have enough carrots, you can add a few apples
  • 1 cup raisins
  • OPTIONAL 1 cup chopped pecans (see above re nuts in cake).

Preheat the oven to 175 C

Line the base of two 10 inch cake pans with baking paper, and grease well with butter

In a large bowl whisk together the corn oil and the sugars until the oil is absorbed into the sugar. Leave to let the mixture meld for a while.

Meanwhile, mix the flour, cinnamon, mixed spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a separate bowl.  Sift half of the dry ingredients over the sugar-oil mixture and blend.

Alternately sift in the rest of the dry ingredients while adding the eggs (lightly beaten), one by one.

Combine all well, and leave to sit for a bit while you grate the carrots.

Add the carrots, the raisins and (if you are using them) the pecans.

Pour mixture into prepared pans and bake for about 25 – 30 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Cool upright in the pan on a cooling rack. Unmold the cake before you refrigerate it if you are not using the cake that day. Wrap it well in plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel.

I think this is best made at least 1 – 2 days in advance. Too fresh a cake makes it very difficult to cut – I used a very fresh cake at my last party, and after the first few slices, the cake was unfolding herself like a blowsy lady who had too much to drink at a party!

Cream Cheese Frosting

  • 1/2 stick to 1 stick of butter (salted) – I usually use less butter than cream cheese, at room temperature
  • 1-8 ounce package of cream cheese at room temperature
  • 200 – 500 g of powdered sugar (I usually use less, and add more to taste)
  • 1 – 3 teaspoons of vanilla

Using electric beaters, cream the butter well.

Add the cream cheese and beat until well blended.

Sift in the sugar and the vanilla.

Depending on the consistency of the frosting, leave in fridge for a few minutes (if too soft) or add a little sour cream or milk (if too stiff).

Assembly

Centre the cake on your serving plate.

Depending on your taste, use a serrated knife to cut the cake into 2 – 3 layers.

Spread the caramel filling between the layers of cake. You may have to use a spoon and just drop the thick caramel onto the layers.

Spread the frosting over the top and sides.

Refrigerate to let the cake hold itself together.

Serve cake at room temperature.

Variations

  • The assembled cake freezes very well
  • You can substitute apples or zucchini for the carrots
  • Batter can also be baked as cupcakes, loaves, sheet cakes

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Banoffee Pie

2 Jul

This is not the traditional recipe for Banoffee Pie. For that, you will have to go here.

But this is the banoffee pie of my childhood. A cookie crumb crust made with HobNobs and melted butter. A thick dark golden brown slather of dulce de leche. Bananas. And a mound of unsweetened vanilla whipped cream. Each on its own, good. Combined together. Nirvana. Honestly. And its one of those desserts that you learn to make from very young, and because its so easy (given the preparedness of the ingredients), you feel a sense of achievement and satisfaction when it is served to ooohs and aaahs.

Assembly is easy, and you can certainly make this divine pudding over a few days, and assemble a few hours before serving. Its really good as breakfast too. Heh.

Crust

  • 3/4 roll of Hobnobs
  • 1/2 cup melted butter

Put about 3/4 roll of HobNob cookies in a zip loc plastic bag. You should have may be 5 or 6 left (good for a cook’s tea!). Break them up a bit using your hands, and then, using any heavy object (the bottom of a wine bottle will come in handy here) smash and crush the biscuits to a fine pebbly sand. You might need to do this in two batches.

Pour the crushed biscuits into an 8 inch round, non stick, springform cake pan. Pour the melted butter over, and mix. Using your fingers, create a crust at the bottom, and about half way up the sides of the pan. Put in the fridge for about 20 minutes to harden up a bit.

Whipped cream

I stabilise my whipped cream with agar agar, which is a vegetarian gelatin made from seaweed. Its totally flavourless, and about 1 tsp of agar agar to 1 cup of cream ensures the cream stays whipped and high, even after 12 hours in the fridge.

You will need to whip:

  • 2 cups heavy cream
  • 2 tsp agar agar
  • 2 tsp vanilla essence

together until they hold hard peaks. Set aside for the assembly.

Assembly

Take the crust out of the fridge, and pour in the cooled dulce de leche. It should completely coat the bottom of the crust, and be about 1/4 inch thick. If you want more, go ahead and add more, just remember it is VERY sweet.

Take about 6 -9 small pisang mas bananas (or whatever is available for you), and slice lengthwise. You should get about 3 long slices from each banana. Layer the bananas over the dulce de leche. Put in the fridge for about 20 minutes to firm up again.

Cover the entire pie with the unsweetened whipped cream, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, and up to 24.

When you are ready to serve, run a knife around the edges, and unmold the springform pan gently.

Serve with love and gratitude.

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Dulce de leche

2 Jul

This is so simple, I feel silly posting it as a recipe. I have always loved this stuff. Sweetened condensed milk cooked for so long that it becomes a rich dark toffee caramel. Its the base for banoffee pie, and to banish sweet cravings, there is nothing better than a teaspoonful.

Most people recommend boiling cans of unopened sweetened condensed milk over the stovetop for 3  hours or so. This is the easiest way to create dulce de leche BUT its also very dangerous. When I was about 13, I was overnighting at an Aunts house in St Johns Wood in London. I was flying out the next day, and she was not there. I was craving something sweet, so decided to make dulce de leche the traditional way. I put my cans of unopened condensed milk in a deep saucepan, and covered with water. And then I proceeded to fall asleep on the couch! I woke up to a HUGE bang and could not, for the life of me, figure out what had happened, until I walked into my Aunts gorgeous gourmet kitchen to find caramel dripping from the ceiling, and every available surface. It took me HOURS to clean up (and I dont think I got everything because a few weeks later, had a very uncomfortable conversation with her!).

Ever since then, I have been a tad nervous about making this. You can pop steam vents into the top of the cans, so that they dont explode, but you still have to check for water every fifteen minutes or so. I prefer this way. Safer, and you can leave it for up to an hour at a time.

Unfortunately, here in Malaysia, we only have sweetened condensed filled milk – which has palm oil as a stabiliser and additive. This method still works, but the preference is obviously for sweetened condensed milk which is just milk and sugar.

You will need one deep roasting pan, filled about 1/3 with cold water, and one smaller roasting pan which can fit inside the deeper one.

Preheat your oven to 170 F.

Place the deep roasting pan into the oven to heat gently.

Pour up to 3 cans of sweetened condensed milk into the second roasting pan, and cover tightly with aluminum foil.

Place this second pan into the first and leave in the oven for up to 3 hours. I would certainly check every hour or so to make sure the water is still there, and to mix the slowly caramelising milk well.

Be careful when you open the oven. A lot of steam gets generated from the water bath, and everything is really really hot.

After about three hours, when you take it out of the oven, dont worry. It will look curdled and lumpy. Some bits will be dark caramel brown, some bits will be lighter and smoother, and some bits will look like milk curds. Just pour and scrape into a clean bowl, and beat with a wire whisk until smooth. Let cool before even thinking of tasting it!

You can flavour this with some vanilla if you like. Unspeakably delicious.

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Salted Caramel Filling

1 Jul

This is food of the goddesses. Sweet, salty, caramel perfection. This is so good, so easy, so quick to make. I got it from one of my favourite cookbooks of all times – The Frog Commissary Cookbook – and its used as a stuffing for a sublime carrot cake.

Use this as an icing, as a stuffing, or even warmed as a caramel sauce for ice cream or anything else. My nephew likes to eat it straight from the bowl. So do I, which is why I try NOT to have it in the fridge on a regular basis.

  • 1 1/2 cups sugar (I use a mix of white sugar, vanilla sugar and organic brown sugar – 1/2 a cup each)
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 cups heavy cream (I use the pouring cream you can buy in the long life milk cartons)
  • 1/2 cup butter (I use salted – but you can use unsalted)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or more – depending on your taste)
  • 1/2 tsp or more to taste Maldon or fleur de sel

In a very heavy saucepan, blend well the sugar(s), flour and salt. Gradually stir in the cream. Make sure they are blended – the dry ingredients will slowly absorb the cream.

Chop the butter and add to the saucepan, and put saucepan over low heat, stirring gently as the butter melts. You will see the butter getting absorbed into the creamy mixture as it melts.

Once the butter has been totally absorbed, stir in 1 teaspoon or so of vanilla.

Simmer this ambrosia for a minimum of 30 minutes, and up to an hour, depending on the heat, and how deep you desire your caramel flavour to be. Stir every 5 – 10 minutes. Make sure you stir so the bottom and sides of the pan get scraped down.

Once the caramel is golden to nut brown, and the mixture is thick, take off the heat, and add at least 2 – 3 more teaspoons of vanilla, taste, and add a little Maldon or fleur de sel. Stir.

Let cool to lukewarm, where you can really taste the flavours, and adjust the salt to your liking.

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Pineapple Upside Down Cake for a Special Person

29 Jun

My organic delivery friend (yes, I have that luxury, and yes, I take full advantage of it! and if you live in KL, you can too!) sent over a beautiful ripe pineapple on Monday. Its been sitting on my counter, looking at me, and smelling of that unique sweet citrus pineapple-y smell that just seduces you into needing to eat it!

But I wanted to do something different, and also may be a little retro. Pineapple upside down cake is just stunning – beautiful pieces of caramelised pineapple and sticky gooey caramel adorning a perfectly simple, and yet deliciously tasty, vanilla cake. Buttermilk makes this tender, as does the melted butter. The cake itself is not very sweet, but that is because youre relying on the caramel to flavour the cake. Its easy to put together, as long as you are patient with the cutting of the pineapple – and have a VERY sharp knife. If you would rather have the old school pineapple rings, by all means cut them that way – you could even put a little cherry in the centre of each, or a strawberry or dried cranberry! But I like the chunky pieces of pineapple best – more rustic, a little less twee retro, craggier and more able to brown and suck up all that gorgeous caramel.

You will need:

  • 1 sweet pineapple
  • 1 stick of butter (8 tablespoons), divided into half (plus a bit for buttering tin)
  • 1/2 cup of brown sugar
  • 1 + 2 tbsp vanilla
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups cake flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Start by prepping. You will need to preheat your oven to 175C, and butter a 9 inch round cake tin very well. Once the cake tin is buttered, prepare a sling made of parchment or baking paper. Tear a sheet that is twice as long as the width of your tin, and centre over the buttered tin. Push it in, and using the butter as a kind of glue, ensure that the paper adheres to the bottom and sides of the tin. Rebutter the sheet of baking paper, up to the sides as well. Set aside.

Prepare your pineapple. You will need a very sharp knife, otherwise please dont attempt this as you may chop a finger off! Resting the pineapple on its now stable bottom, use your knife to peel off the skin. Cut in half lengthwise, and then into quarters. Once the skin is off, you will need to get the brown “eyes” that stay within the indentations. Use your knife again, working slowly and carefully, at an angle, against the pineapple. You will see that its possible to make triangluar cuts into the pineapple in long strips to take off these pesky bits. Once the pineapple is clean, cut out the woody interior, and chop roughly. Set aside once you have prepared the entire pineapple.

Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a large pan over high heat. Once the butter has been melted, add all the pineapple, and ensure that it is in one layer at the bottom of the pan. Allow it to brown and caramelise in the butter, flipping over only a few times, for about 5 to ten minutes or so. Sprinkle over about half the brown sugar, and mix, and allow to cook, all in one layer, for a few minutes. Add the rest of the brown sugar, mix, and let bubble for a bit. Add about 1 tablespoon of vanilla (be careful, it will hiss and spit at you!), and mix well.

Using your spatula, transfer all the pineapple and gorgeous caramel into your baking tin. Ensure that it coats the entire bottom of the tin, and the pineapple is well layered. Set aside.

Add the remaining 4 tablespoons butter to the hot pan – it should melt quickly. Once melted, transfer immediately to a heatproof bowl, and whisk in white sugar, buttermilk, eggs and remaining vanilla. Once the mixture is foamy, set aside while you mix dry ingredients together (I usually just measure out the flour, add the baking soda and salt to the measuring cup and mix with spoon).

Using a spatula, mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Taste for vanilla, and add more if its to your liking. Spoon or pour the batter over the caramelised pineapples in the tin and smooth the top over. Bake in your hot oven for 50 – 60 minutes (checking at about 45) or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Take the tin out of the oven, and let it rest for at least ten to fifteen minutes, over a cookie rack. This waiting time is really important, to let the caramel set up, so that when you flip it over, the while thing wont run in rivers over your countertop! Be patient! Once the tin is lukewarm and handleable, invert the tin over a cake plate, using the paper sling to coax it out. Peel the parchment off gently, and adjust any pineapple bits that may have fallen off. Let the cake rest for at least another 10 minutes or so before slicing.

You could serve this with some creme fraiche, a few strawberries, or some vanilla ice cream, but thats kind of gilding the lily! Its beautiful as is, and such a wonderful tribute to the prickly pineapple.

Cooks Note: you can bake this without the parchment sling. It will definitely make the caramel stickier and richer in colour and flavour. I decided against it because I wanted a lighter version of the cake but feel free to eschew the parchment sling. In that case, rest for only up to ten minutes when it comes out the oven.

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