So Sweet!

This November I got excited about the new challenge of caramel cake. I enjoy baking recipes of the sweet nature as opposed to savory ones and since this is only my third daring bakers challenge it is the first dessert recipe that I'm participating in.


The caramel cake recipe that we were asked to try was from Shuna Fish Lydon. Reading the forum was a great help for me. I picked up on a lot of useful tips in making the syrup thereby allowing me to avoid burnt sugar and burnt arms/hands. Visually the cake turned out pretty much ok. It was not also too difficult to make and it did not require a lot of waiting time to come up with the finished product - no waiting, resting of dough etc such as with the previous challenge.


The taste though was not one of my most successful products. By this, I mean that my family did not gobble this cake with as much enthusiasm as others that i've done before. Main reason was that the cake was just way too sweet for our taste. This despite the fact that I already cut the sugar by a considerable amount on the icing recipe. I did not add the full amount of 1 lb of powdered sugar called for but instead just used 2 cups, still it was too sweet in the end. Taste of brown butter though was delicious. This type of icing/frosting reminds me of a donut glaze. I would have probably enjoyed a thicker creamier type of frosting. Maybe I did something wrong along the way in following the recipe.


Although the taste was not a winner for me or a keeper I'm glad I did this challenge because it made me work with sugar syrup, something that I think can be difficult.

- Aleli