millionaire's shortbread cake and a duff for dad

October has been rather busy and cake filled for my family. My birthday is at the beginning of the month, swiftly followed by my friend/future sister-in-law then my Dad a couple of weeks later. As a chocolate fiend I knew my friend's cake needed to be decadent so I took inspiration from a millionaire's shortbread cake I found on Jane's Patisserie blog.

 

Considering my family were still working through my large birthday cake I didn't think it was wise to bake a monster triple layer cake. Instead I adapted the cake to be smaller by using a standard 4 egg victoria sponge recipe baked in two 8" cake tins and swapped the caster sugar for soft light brown sugar. I also made my own caramel and millionaire's shortbread pieces as I felt like being fancy.

I don't know what it is about me and caramel but it's always a bit of a disaster. Every time without fail I burn the first batch. EVERY TIME. Also, it's always lumpy. Recipes say that if the caramel hardens and goes a bit lumpy after adding the cream just to put the pan back over the heat until it melts. Mine doesn't want to melt, even if I practically reboil it. Should I fully reboil it or will it go further wrong and burn? Should I warm the cream up first so it's less of a hot/cold reaction when adding it to the sugar? Tips or suggestions welcome!

The millionaire's shortbread, however, was an absolute triumph. Man, that stuff is addictive to eat. In fact it was the best thing about this cake. I don't know why, but the cake itself was a bit underwhelming. Perhaps I slightly overbaked the sponge, the chocolate icing was too thick, or maybe I'm just not that big a fan of cakes without a jam or curd filling or a fruit element as they're too sweet (gasp!) and lack contrast. It could be a combination or just personal preference.

It's a shame this cake didn't quite hit the spot for me, especially considering how cool it looked and the effort I put into making it, but I can highly recommend the millionaire's shortbread. You can find the recipe for it in my archives here. I only make it once every few years for fear of eating it all and becoming morbidly obese!

For Dad's birthday I baked a duff (clootie pudding) as it's his favourite along with a tray of buns/fairy cakes for my nephews as they're not fussed with boiled fruit pudding. I think this duff turned out better than the last one I made a couple of years ago (you can find the post and recipe here) as I kept a closer eye on the water level in the pot. Dad has had a really tough year health wise so he fully deserved a celebratory duff with a mahoosive exploding candle.

After a week's break I'm just about ready to start thinking about cakes and baking again. Roll on Hallowe'en!

salted caramel cake

I've finally jumped on the salted caramel bandwagon. How many years late am I?

One of my brothers gave me the new Primrose Bakery book for Christmas (probably with some not so casual hints from my Mum, hehe) and many a bedtime since then has been happily spent flicking through the pretty pages. I've generally not felt very inspired by the latest baking books for the last year or so (I think the market hit saturation point, there's only so many ways you can pimp up a sponge) but for whatever reason this book really appealed to me.

After the sort-of success of Mum's birthday caramel cake I decided to try the salted caramel cake recipe. The first batch of caramel was, as expected, a bit of a disaster: disgustingly salty and borderline burnt. Luckily I had enough cream for a second attempt and it worked perfectly. If you're unsure about the whole salt and caramel thing like myself, I recommend reducing the salt to 1/2 teaspoon. You can always swap out some of the unsalted butter in the icing for salted if you want to increase the flavour afterwards. It can be added but not taken out.

This cake was soooooo good. The flavour of the salted caramel icing reminded me of the tablet/candy Mum and I make every Christmas; so sweet and fudgy. It was definitely worth swirling the remaining salted caramel sauce on top of the cake for extra flavour, although I have to admit it was hugely tempting just to scoop it up with a big spoon and shove it in my gob. I'm glad I reined in my greediness.

The sponge itself was also pleasingly soft and fluffy. I don't think I've ever used cornflour in a sponge cake before, so that's a new trick for me.

This is definitely a cake to bake again. The memory of that thick, fudgy, caramel icing will be too hard to resist.

Salted caramel cake

Recipe from the new Primrose Bakery book, "Everyday" by Martha Swift:

The only change I made, other than the salt quantity, was not including the caramel chocolates/sweeties for the cake filling and topping. As much as I love caramel chocolates, I thought that would be sweetness overkill.

salted caramel:

100g granulated sugar

3 tblsp water

125ml double cream

1/2 - 1 tsp sea salt (not table salt)

Put the sugar water in a medium pan over a medium heat and wait for the sugar to dissolve. Gently swirl it every so often but don't stir as it will cause the sugar to crystallise. Once dissolved, whack up to a high heat and let the sugar boil until it turns golden in colour. 

While the sugar is boiling, put the cream and sea salt in another saucepan over a medium heat and cook until it starts "smoking" - hot but not boiling. Don't let it boil. Once hot turn it down to a low heat and if needed stir to stop a skin forming on top of the cream. 

Once the sugar has turned golden take it off the heat and quickly add a small amount of the hot cream whilst stirring with a wooden spoon to prevent any sticking in the saucepan. Add the remaining cream bit by bit, continually stirring, until it's all incorporated. Be careful at this stage as the mixture will be bubbling fiercely. Pour the caramel sauce into a heatproof bowl or jar and set aside to cool. 

sponge:

225g golden caster sugar

1 tsp baking powder

210g self raising flour

25g cornflour

225g softened unsalted butter 

4 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 tbsp milk 

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/ Gas 4. Grease two 20cm (8 inch) round cake tins and line the bases with greaseproof paper. Put the sugar, baking powder, flour and cornflour in a large bowl and mix until evenly combined. Add the butter, eggs, vanilla and milk and mix everything together until well combined, about a minute with a handheld or stand mixer. Don't overmix otherwise you'll end up with a heavy sponge.

Spoon the mixture evenly into the cake tins and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 25-30 minutes until well risen, golden, springy to touch and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out to finish cooling on a wire rack.

salted caramel butter icing:

150g softened unsalted butter

150g salted caramel sauce

300g icing sugar

Mix the caramel and butter together in a large bowl until smooth. Add the icing sugar and mix for at least a minute until the icing is nice and smooth. Use half of the icing to sandwich the two (cooled) cakes together and the other half to cover the top. Swirl any remaining caramel sauce on top for decoration.

Burnt sugar (caramel) cake

This was all that was left from my Mum's birthday cake at the weekend by the time I got the camera out. I thought I'd better include the recipe photograph for reference since the last few slices of the cake look as if they have been unceremoniously thrown at a plate.

I experienced a lot of caramel induced rage with this bake and was convinced I had produced a dud BUT... this was actually a really good cake. It had a caramel flavour without being overly sweet and a soft texture, I'm assuming due to addition of sour cream. The sugar shard decoration also provided a fun crunch as well as a pretty stained glass window effect. It's a shame I didn't get a photograph of the cake in its full glory.

Now I have 100g leftover sour cream. Any suggestions on what to bake with it?

Burnt sugar cake
Recipe from Cakes Galore by Valerie Barrett accompanied by my own rage commentary.

sponges:
450g caster sugar
125ml boiling water
175g softened butter, unsalted
3 eggs
300g self-raising flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
200ml soured cream

icing:
125g softened butter, unsalted
250g icing sugar
3 tbsp caster sugar

Start by making a caramel syrup. On a medium heat on the hob heat 200g of the caster sugar in a heavy based saucepan. Stir occasionally until the sugar has melted then cook without stirring until it's liquid and dark golden in colour (I burnt my first batch, which is becoming a tradition whenever I make caramel.) Take off the heat and gradually pour in the boiling water, taking care not to burn yourself as it will bubble fiercely. Return the pan to a simmering heat and stir continuously for a minute until the caramel/sugar has dissolved. (Mine seized into ugly lumps and didn't want to dissolve at all even after a few minutes. I eventually thought I had managed, but I saw more lumps as it cooled.) Pour the caramel into a heatproof measuring jug and leave to cool. 

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4. Grease two 20cm round sandwich tins and line the bases with greaseproof paper. Beat together the butter and sugar for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition. In a separate bowl sift together the flour and bicarbonate of soda. In another bowl (yay, more bowls to wash) mix together the soured cream with 125ml of the cooled caramel syrup (and this is when the caramel went really lumpy, again. I picked out the worst lumps.) Add the flour mix and sour cream to the cake batter, alternating them in a couple of batches, until everything is fully incorporated. 

Divide the mixture evenly between the two prepared tins and bake in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes or until risen, golden and firm to touch (mine easily took an extra 5-10 minutes to bake. They rose really strangely: the sides puffed up but the centre stayed in a sad hollow. Why?!) Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

For the icing, mix together the butter, sugar and remaining caramel until soft and fluffy. Sandwich the cakes together with half of the mix then spread the rest on top. As my caramel "syrup" had completely solidified by this point I dumped it and went with a plain butter icing. I don't think the cake missed the extra caramel flavour as it was already sweet.

To make the sugar shards, (yay, MORE caramel) lightly oil a baking tray then put 3tbsp caster sugar into a heavy based saucepan and gently heat until the sugar turns liquid and golden in colour. Quickly pour this onto the prepared tray, tilting it to make sure the liquid spreads evenly. Leave until completely cold then break off into shards and use to decorate the cake.

Banana blondie fail

I was so excited about these blondies which made it all the more devastating that they didn't particularly work.

 
The first disaster was burning the caramel for the nutty brittle (why do I find this so hard?! It was like the tarte tatin incident all over again) but thankfully the second batch worked. I'm blaming the cooker as I'm convinced it's not level which caused the caramel to cook quicker on one side.

Disaster number two were the eggs. I had already mashed my bananas and cracked the egg on top. BUT...........the egg was off. Eugh! I had only poured it down the side so I rescued as much of the banana as I could which hadn't touched the egg and thankfully I had one extra banana to spare.

The rest of the mixture came together absolutely fine and I whacked it in the oven. The recipe stated that it should be golden and "wobbly-set". I thought it looked too wobbly so I left it in the oven for an extra ten minutes with the top covered with a sheet of baking parchment to stop the surface from burning.

Despite my gut instinct to leave it in longer I took it out in fear of over-baking. Blondies and brownies are deceptively tricky aren't they? They almost need to err on being a little undercooked to have the chewy, squidgy element as they're no use if they're over baked.

 

Well, mine were practically raw in the middle. After leaving them to cool and rescuing the edges (which tasted lovely, although very sweet) I put the rest back in the oven, hoping I could make it slightly more edible. This may have worked had I not wandered off and completely forgotten about it, resulting in this burnt mess.....

More brownie than blondie wouldn't you agree? 

Saying that, it still tasted quite nice (although crunchy) so the recipe may be worth revisiting. I'm glad I persevered with the caramel as it brought a lovely sticky banoffee flavour with the bananas to the blondie. If any of you have caramel "issues" like me, whatever you do, DO NOT put the hot pan of caramel in cold water (unless you fancy having shards of caramel in your face although I wouldn't recommend it). Set it aside on the hob for a few minutes before filling it with warm-hot soapy water. After leaving it to soak for a bit it will dissolve and wipe clean no bother. 

Come on, make me feel better. Who else has had a baking fail recently?

Millionaire's shortbread

Oh my, these have got to be the sweetest, stickiest, piggiest things known to mankind. They are heart attack inducing and one single piece may cause you to go up two dress sizes.

It is worth it though.

Sweet things on my sweet cake stand.

Millionaire's shortbread

This is apparently a Mary Berry recipe, which is appropriate since The Great British Bake Off is back on TV. However I can't remember which blog I found it on, sorry!

Base:

225g plain flour

100g caster sugar

225g butter

100g semolina

Topping:

175g butter

175g caster sugar

4 tbsp golden syrup

1 x 397g can condensed milk (yum!)

200g milk chocolate (or dark if you prefer)

Set the oven to 160C/Gas mark 2. Lightly grease/line a 20 x 33cm oblong tin. Mix the base ingredients until they form a smooth dough (I mixed by hand). Press into the tin and prick all over with a fork. Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden and firm, then leave to cool. Next put all the topping ingredients (except the chocolate) in a saucepan and stir over a low heat until the butter and sugar has melted. Bubble the mixture gently for 5-8 minutes, stirring constantly, until it is thick and fudgy and darker in colour. Pour into the tin evenly. Once that has set melt the chocolate and pour into the tin as well and spread evenly. Leave to set, (or mostly set if you're like me and desperately want a piece) then cut into squares and pig out!