{TWD} Brownie Cake with Caramel Brûlé

Subtitle: Continuing Adventures in caramelization

Last week, the "brûlée" part of creme brûlée (literally "burnt cream") totally eluded me, but this week "brûlé" found me even though I wasn't looking for it!

You know what they say about getting back on the horse? Well, I was still a little bit bruised from last week's mishap in the stove-top caramelization saddle, but 4 days later I got back up on that cooked-sugar steed for another TWD recipe.

But first, the cake -

-I made a few tiny changes:
a) Eggbeaters in place of the eggs
b) Lyles Golden Syrup instead of light corn syrup

- I followed a tip I read long ago: when making a chocolate cake, dust the pan with cocoa rather than flour; it prevents that whitish crust that can form on the edges of a chocolate cake when you dust with flour.

-My cake baked for 41 minutes at 325 degrees (my springform is a dark nonstick surface, so I lower the prescribed temperature).


Now for the caramel:

I did some reading about caramel. It still sounded tricky to me. David Lebovitz suggested having a bowl of ice water nearby in case of burns. Molten sugar is not only very hot, but it's very sticky. It adheres to the skin and just keeps burning.


So I set everything up and started heating the sugar/water/corn syrup mixture.


The sugar turned a lovely deep amber color, and I added the butter and cream.


It looked perfect, but I noticed a slightly scorched smell. And taste. Or so I thought. I really needed another opinion, but nobody was around except the dogs. And although the pooches were ready to oblige, I don't think their palates are discriminating enough. So I kept tasting the caramel, and finally lost all perspective. My conclusion: The caramel had character, a note of sophistication, really. In truth, I was tired of working with hot sugar, had no more cream, and not much time. So I used it.

Looking back on the cooking process, although the sugar never burned I think one little area (top left in the picture above) might have scorched (probably when I was shooting the picture!) and that flavor spread throughout the pan as I added the butter and cream. Although Dorie's directions said not to stir during caramelization, I wonder if swirling the pan might have helped it cook more evenly.

As an aside, I was definitely thankful for the bowl of ice water next to the stove, because my thumb was definitely scorched in the cooking process.

Assembly notes:

I don't know what it is about peanuts + chocolate. Dorie is a big proponent, but me? Not so much. The first time I heard that Snickers were the most popular candy bar, I thought, "Really? It has peanuts." (Now, I'll grant you that chocolate and peanut butter is a match made in heaven, but that's completely different.)

So peanuts were not an option. I decided to use salted macadamias instead, since they had worked well in my Chocolate Chunker cookies a few weeks ago. I was baking this cake for my book group, however, and one of the guys, JT, doesn't like nuts, so I decided to put some roughly chopped macadamias just in the center of the cake. For the outer portion of the cake, I used some toffee bits left over from the Banded Ice Cream Torte. JT could just push aside a few nuts from the center of his slice and enjoy the rest.

The Verdict:

This cake was very, very good, thank goodness! The cake part was not as dense as I was expecting. It did have a brownie flavor to it, but to me it also resembled devil's food cake.


Because I divided my toppings into rings, I had three separate taste combinations:
a) In the center section, the mellow buttery chopped macadamia nuts smoothed out the bitter notes in the caramel, and the salty crunch added a great counterpoint to the dense chocolate and sticky caramel.
b)The middle ring was plain caramel, which really spotlighted the textures of the cake layer and the topping. The two flavors combined in a pleasantly complex way.
c) The toffee pieces in the outer ring had a similar flavor to the caramel itself, and provided a nice crunchy texture.

The caramel itself had a pronounced flavor (that was not "burned"). The tasters at book club said that it was kind of a "coffee" taste. It reminded me of toffee - which made the dessert like a cake version of a Heath bar. Which is a very good thing. What's interesting is that both of the mix-ins had the effect of mellowing out the strong edges of my (scorched) caramel's flavor.

Ice cream or whipped cream may have been good with this cake, but I didn't have either one. Not that the cake needed anything else.


In sum, I don't really know if my caramel was "slightly scorched" or "strongly caramelized", but luckily we ended up liking the taste. It was an adult-type flavor. And the leftover caramel was pretty good eaten with a spoon right from the fridge!

The Caramel-Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake on pages 264 and 265 of Dorie Greenspan's book Baking From My Home to Yours was chosen by Tammy of Wee Treats by Tammy. You can find the recipe in Tammy's post, but I'd say buy the book!

{An aside: I'm out of blogging range this week - have set this post up in advance - and won't be reading any blogs or posting any comments. I'll catch up with everyone next week!}