Double-Hazelnut Vanilla Caramel Cake – quite a character!

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Re-reading Kathryn Stockett’s best-seller, The Help, I couldn't get one of the characters out of my mind. Appearing almost as often as the main protagonist, Minnie’s Caramel Cake seemed to be a huge part of the story. It made me hungry every time I picked up the book.

I tried to find a definitive recipe for Caramel Cake, but – like Irish stew – it appears to be one of those recipes that no matter what version you use, you’ll set someone’s tongue a-tutting.

Soooooo, I’m not going to try and recreate a Caramel Cake. I am going to make a Double-Hazelnut Vanilla Caramel Cake – hazelnut sponge cake, with a layer of creamy Nutella filling, slip in some crushed meringue, add a layer of caramel, another layer of Nutella/meringue filling. Top this sugar-fest with more caramel - the filling doubles as frosting.  You’ll need a sugar thermometer for the caramel topping.

For 10 generous slices you will need...
... to pre-heat the oven to 160°C


For the Cake Batter

200g butter, at room temperature

180g caster sugar

4 eggs, beaten

150mls fresh milk

1 teaspooon vanilla extract

330g plain flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

50g toasted hazelnuts, chopped

Method

·     First, butter and base-line two 23cm sandwich tins.

·     In a large mixing bowl (or food mixer) beat together the soft butter and sugar until fluffy and paler in colour.

·     In a jug, mix together the eggs, milk and vanilla extract.

·     In another bowl, mix together the flour and baking powder.

·     Slowly add about a quarter of the egg mixture to the butter, beating continuously until combined. Then, add about a quarter of the flour mixture. Continue beating while you add alternate lots of egg and flour to the butter mixture until both have been used up.

·     Finally, add in the toasted hazelnuts and mix until just combined.

·     Divide the mixture between the two buttered, base-lined sandwich tins and bake in the pre-heated oven for 30 minutes. Prod lightly with a finger. The sponges should spring back. If not, give them another 5 minutes or so and test again.

·     Leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Leave to cool completely.

While the cakes are baking, make the fillings...

For the Creamy Nutella Filling

240g cream cheese

130g Nutella

220g icing sugar, sifted

2 single-portion ready-made meringues, crushed into pea-sized bits

·     Place the cream cheese, Nutella, and icing sugar in a mixing bowl and with your hand-held blender set to low, beat together until combined in a smooth mixture. The meringue comes in later...

For the Caramel Filling and Topping

330g sugar

250mls milk

30g black treacle

50g Kerrygold butter

8 tablespoons condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

·     Place the sugar, milk and treacle in a saucepan and stir together over a low heat until the sugar has melted. Turn up the heat a little, stirring continuously, until the mixture is bubbling and has reached the ‘soft ball’ mark on your sugar thermometer (116°C or 240°F). Don’t worry if the milk separates. It will all come together in the end.

·     As soon as it has reached the ‘soft ball’ stage, remove it from the heat and add the butter, letting it melt. Stir the melted butter into the mixture – it will seem like this is never going to happen at first, but persist! When the butter has vanished into the mixture, stir in the condensed milk and vanilla extract.

·     Leave the mixture to get cold, beating occasionally to break up the surface crust that forms as it cools.

Assemble when the cakes and the frosting are cold

·     Split each of the cakes and fill both with the Nutella mixture. Sprinkle the filling with crushed meringue before joining the cake halves together again.

·     Pour a generous layer of caramel on top of one cake and stack the other cake on top.

·     Pour the rest of the caramel over the stacked cakes, smoothing with a palate knife. Ensure that the sides are covered.

·     At this stage it looks very brown so I coat the sides with chopped toasted hazelnuts (that makes it triple hazelnut!) or desiccated coconut and drizzle the top with dark chocolate which sets hard and makes a lovely contrast to the soft caramel. You may have other decorating ideas. Either way, prepare for a sugar rush.

Tip
Use ready-made caramel or Dulche de Leche in place of the caramel frosting if you want to save yourself a bit of stirring. 

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Walnut Frangipane Tart with Apple and Fudge – when ingredients rebel...

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Yesterday, I bought some Bramley apples. They had “apple pie” written all over them - or so I thought.  Somehow a stray bag of fudge ended up among my shopping. I didn’t spot this stowaway until it had been through the checkout and all the way home.

 

Hey Apple! We've got a better plan...

On the journey, these ingredients conspired and by the time they were unpacked, the apples refused to be mere apple pie. They recruited the fudge and a bag of walnuts that needed using up, (remember War On Waste?), then staged a revolution.

I gave in and packed the apples and fudge into a crumbly sweet pastry shell, then topped the lot with a walnut frangipane. OMG! I’m glad I listened to those apples. They were so right!

It's a conspiracy!

For one large delicious tart you will need...

Sweet Pastry

150g butter

50g caster sugar

1 egg, beaten

½ teaspoon vanilla essence

225g plain flour

1          For the pastry: In a large bowl or stand mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy and pale in colour. Now add the flour to the creamed sugar/butter mixture, beating until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Mix together the egg and vanilla essence and add a little at a time, until the mixture comes together in a soft paste. You may not need to use all of the egg. Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes in the fridge (or overnight if possible).

2          Remove the pastry from the fridge and place on a lightly floured surface or on a large sheet of non-stick baking parchment. Roll the pastry out, making sure to roll in one direction, turning the pastry a quarter at a time to keep it spreading out evenly to a thickness of about 3mm (about the thickness of a euro coin).  If you roll in both directions you can end up stretching the pastry which will shrink back in the oven. Use to line a 23cm (9 inch) tart tin. Press gently into place, then run the rolling pin over the top – this neatly removes any pastry overhang. Return the pastry to the fridge to rest while you pre-heat the oven to 170°C.

Apple and Fudge filling

1 - 2 Bramley apples, or your favourite apple (yielding about 250g of fruit when prepared)

150g vanilla fudge, finely chopped (or 12 tablespoons of fleur de sel caramel sauce)

3          Peel the apples and cut into 1cm cubes. Place the apple cubes in a bowl of cold water to which you’ve added a squeeze of lemon juice to stop them turning brown, or if using the fleur de sel caramel sauce pour over the apple cubes and set aside until ready to use.

Walnut Frangipane

100g butter

100g caster sugar

3 medium eggs, beaten

100g walnuts, ground

100g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

4          Make the frangipane filling: Place the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl or stand mixer and beat together until pale and fluffy. Add the beaten egg, a little at a time, mixing well between additions. When all the beaten egg has been added, sprinkle in the ground walnuts, flour and baking powder, and mix well until all the ingredients have been combined.

5          Remove the chilled tart shell from the fridge. Dry the apple cubes in a clean teacloth and arrange evenly in the pastry shell, leaving a margin of about 1cm around the edge .  Sprinkle the chopped fudge over the apple (or if using the fleur de sel caramel sauce simply spoon the apple/caramel mixture into the shell). Now spoon the walnut frangipane filling over this, levelling it out with the back of the spoon or a spatula, right to the edge of the pastry.

6          Place in the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes or until the filling is golden brown and risen and springs back when pressed lightly with your finger. Leave to cool, then remove from the baking tin. Dust with icing sugar before serving with a swirl of whipped cream.


Couldn't resist an extra hit of caramel

There are some apples left over from that batch. With such ambition and creativity, who knows what they’ll become! J

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Lipsmacking Blarney Kisses - Mwah!

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Sometimes a kiss will leave your heart pounding. Sometimes a kiss will leave your legs trembling. Sometimes a kiss will make your head spin. If all three sensations occur at once, and you begin to speak with unaccustomed expressiveness, there is only one possible explanation: you have just kissed the Stone of Eloquence (aka the Blarney Stone).

The experience goes something like this:

Stroll through beautiful blossom-filled gardens that line the approach to the 15^th century tower.

Blarney Castle, Co. Cork

Next, climb the steep, narrow, shadowy spiral of stone that could loosely be described as a staircase - but could more believably pass for a curly ladder, with steps worn to a smooth shine by 500 years of history.

Don't look down!

By the time you have ascended 6 hair-raising flights, your heart is galloping and your legs are shaking – from exertion or from terror or both. Now all you have to do is lie on your back on the parapet and wriggle over the edge. Don't worry, a friendly Irishman will grab a hold, preventing you from falling to your death.

There follows an enormous backbend (lucky you took those ballet/yoga classes eh?) as you pucker up and slap a kiss on the legendary blue stone – which is embedded much further down the battlements than you originally thought. If your eyes aren’t squeezed shut with fright, you’ll get a fleeting view of the perfect green lawn 6 storeys below. Eeeek!

The stone from below, (just above the top window);            "Don't look down";

Before you have time to panic, you are helped to your feet. You did it! Wait a few moments and pretend to admire the astounding view while your heart rate returns to normal and your head stops spinning.

Now all you have to do is get back to ground level, via another terrifyingly whirly flight of stairs.

Here is my latest creation – the Blarney Kiss. It is a walnut shortbread, with a toffee/caramel embedded to represent the stone, and a white chocolate x on top for the kiss. Whimsical? Yes,  but be sure to pack a few of these when visiting the Stone of Eloquence. You'll be grateful for the sugar hit as you make your way back to the ground.

Have a kiss and a cuppa!

For approximately a dozen kisses you will need...to pre-heat the oven to 170°C

175g butter, softened

80g caster sugar

200g plain flour

50g corn flour

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

a pinch of fine table salt

50g walnuts, roughly chopped

2 tablespoons iced water

approximately 12 soft toffees/caramels

75g white chocolate

1          Place the butter and sugar in a food mixer or a large bowl and mix together until fluffy and paler in colour.

2          Mix in the plain flour, corn flour, vanilla extract, salt, chopped walnuts and iced water and mix just until the ingredients come together in a ball.

Press a toffee 'stone' into the centre of each

3          Roll the ball of paste out on a floured surface to an oblong roughly 7mm / ¼ inch thick and using a knife dipped in flour, trim to a neat rectangle.

4          Cut the paste into rectangles large enough to frame the toffee/caramel which you are going to embed in the centre of each - making sure to push the toffee into the paste but not all the way through. Transfer to a non-stick (or lightly floured) baking sheet. Squash any off-cuts into a ball and re-roll.

5          Bake the cookies in the pre-heated oven for 12 – 15 minutes or until the biscuit is evenly golden and the toffee has melted.

6          Transfer to a cooling rack. When cold, melt the white chocolate and using a piping bag (or a freezer bag with a tiny corner snipped off) place an x (the kiss of course!) on top of this melt-in-the-mouth shortbread.



Mwah!

These are not sophisticated, but they are Mwah!
X

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Sticky Toffee Cupcakes with Fleur de Sel Caramel – fall for them!

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There is something about the whole Gym thing that makes me think of battery farming. I much prefer free-range exercise, particularly as I am fortunate enough to live in one of Ireland’s most beautiful counties.

Sticky Toffee Cupcakes - I've fallen for them! 

Free-range exercise offers a dilemma of its own - which route to choose? Which view will be more spectacular today?

The lakes are a no-brainer on a frosty morning when a mist sits just above the surface of the water giving the scene a dreamy Camelot-like quality.  The forest has its own charms, and is full of interesting wild life. If I take my mountain bike there I am quite likely to spot a stag; or a doe with its fawn; or on a really good day, a rare red kite.

My beloved will happily hike with me but refuses to take his mountain bike out. There was that unfortunate incident when his rear wheel slipped off a narrow path and his bike came to a dead stop. Making a brave attempt to balance, he wrestled with the uncooperative contraption for a long moment ... before toppling head-over-heels into a ditch.

Luckily he had a soft landing. Unluckily, it was an evil-smelling liquid mud that was the exact colour and texture of warm caramel sauce. Once I established that only his pride was injured I cried with laughter at the bedraggled sight. I still cannot eat this sticky toffee dessert without snickering at the memory!

Ahem! Anyway, it is light and sticky. It is sweet with little hits of salt in the caramel. Good vanilla ice cream completes the picture. Resign yourself to second helpings.

Did I mention it is also extremely versatile? Swap the dates for some of that left-over christmas mincemeat and a teaspoon of grated orange peel and ditch the salt in the sauce for 4 tablespoons of Grand Marnier liqueur. Magic!

For 12 cupcakes you will need...

... to pre-heat the oven to 160°C

200g ready-to-eat dried dates, quartered

100mls tea

1 tablespoon treacle (or molasses)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

110g butter

175g dark brown sugar

3 large eggs

250g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon fine table salt

It's a date!

1          Place the dates, tea and treacle (or molasses) in a saucepan over a medium heat. Bring to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer gently, uncovered, until the dates have absorbed most of the liquid. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract and the bicarbonate of soda (which will fizz alarmingly but helps make the cake light and fluffy). Leave to cool.

2          While the dates are cooling, line a 12-hole muffin tin with muffin cases.

3          Cream together the butter and sugar until paler in colour and fluffy – an electric mixer/beaters is best for this. Meanwhile in a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.

4          Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between additions, and alternating with a tablespoonful of the flour mixture. When the egg has been combined, add the rest of the flour mixture and beat until just combined.

5          Add the cooled dates - they don’t have to be completely cold – and mix until just combined.

6          Divide the mixture between the 12 muffin cases and transfer to the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes until well risen and cooked through. A toothpick inserted in the centre should come out clean. If any mixture adheres, bake for a further 5 minutes and test again.

7          When cooked, remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Ooooooh yeaaaaah!

To make the fleur de sel caramel sauce you will need...

... to exercise caution – boiling sugar is very, very hot

180g caster sugar

1 teaspoon white malt vinegar

75g butter, cut into walnut-sized pieces

150mls pouring cream

½ teaspoon fleur de sel salt (or other large crystal salt)

1                   Place the sugar and vinegar in a medium saucepan over a medium heat. After 3 minutes or so, the sugar will start to become liquid. Stir until all the crystals have melted into an amber-coloured syrup.

2                   Add the butter and stir until melted - the mixture will bubble vigorously but will soon subside. Remove from the heat then add the cream and stir until smooth. Finally, stir in the fleur de sel salt. Allow the sauce to cool a little before transferring to a sterilised jar.

Le Salt


To serve, remove the cupcakes from their papers. Warm the cakes and the caramel sauce. Dust the cakes with icing sugar and add a generous puddle of caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream.

The first sticky toffee cupcakes of the year, with the first daffodils.

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