Included in this bakebook was a recipe called a "Sweet and Salty" Chocolate Cake that I decided would be the perfect way to celebrate this year. This cake had 3 layers of moist chocolate cake each soaked with a salty caramel syrup and then covered with a caramel chocolate ganache and garnished with fleur de sel (gray sea salt).
This cake is a fairly intensive creation, and I would have to estimate that all in, we spent a good 4 or so hours on it's creation. Along the way (and much to my amusement) my boyfriend unfortunately stumbled onto some unsweetened flavors that I wouldn't recommend tasting (dissolved unsweetened cocoa powder, vanilla, and salted heavy cream), but I digress.
What follows is my evaluation of the baking and tasting processes :-)
Caramel
This recipe involved making caramel in 2 different batches (a salty caramel flavored with the fleur de sel and a regular caramel), and making this caramel (a first for me!) was one of the more nerve-wracking parts. First we had to scald the heavy cream (no big deal), and then we had to caramlize -read: heat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit- sugar, corn syrup and water.Cake
I am moderately experienced in making fudge, but I confess that everytime I am required to heat a liquid mixture to a certain temperature, I get a little nervous. My nerves were not helped by the fact that I dumbly threw my glass-enclosed candy thermometer into a pan of water in the sink after the first batch and then had to use a surface/laser thermometer to approximate the temperature in the 2nd batch. Luckily enough, both batches of caramel turned out great (we both taste-tested a few times here). The salty caramel had a mild salt aftertaste that balanced the sweetness beautifully and the regular caramel had a deliciously unadulterated caramel sweetness - mmm mmm good!
Making the cakes was not particularly difficult, but as the cocoa had to be dissolved in hot water and then allowed to come to room temperature, it was a bit time consuming. Well worth it, though, as the batter was thick and rich and addictively tasty. I decided to divide the batter into 3 parts using a food scale in hopes that each of the layers would be equal in size. It worked! The layers turned out almost perfectly symmetrical, and required no cutting to make a level cake.Caramel Chocolate Ganache
Finally came the time to make the caramel ganache (this is where the regular caramel came into play). The ganache was a mixture of dissolved cocoa, sugar, heavy cream, the aforementioned regular caramel, and LOTS of butter. It whipped up beautifully and was my first really successful frosting (ie, held its shape well, stuck nicely to the cake, and tasted delicious without being overly greasy).Putting it together
We assembled the cake on my cake saver. The order was:
- Cake
- Salty Caramel
- Fleur de sel garnish (this was applied after the ganache on the last layer)
- Chocolate caramel ganache
Final Thoughts
I really loved this cake, but if I make it again, I have decided that I would prefer to up the fleur de sel in the salty caramel and omit it as a garnish. The reasons for this are two-fold.
- Texture is very important to me, and I am not a fan of mixing velvety textures (eg, cakes, brownies, muffins) with crunchy textures (eg, nuts, salt). For me (and my boyfriend, too!), the distinct crunch of the salt interfered with our enjoyment of the cake
- The fleur de sel garnish tipped the cake to being just a touch too salty for my taste
That said, I am excited to experiement with other recipes from the Baked bakebook. I tried their PB cookie recipe over the holidays and have decided that it is my absolute favorite PB Cookie recipe ever (and I love PB cookies!).
Posts
This is AWESOME!! Thanks for the analysis. Nobody EVER gives you that kind of information. You rock for doing so! And I can only imagine your boyfriend trying all those flavors that DO NOT taste as their names suggest.
ReplyDelete