This month the Daring Bakers were hosted by Delores of Culinary Curiosity, Alex of The Blondie and the Brownie, Jenny of Foray into Food, and the lovely Natalie of Gluten a Go Go helped with the alternative Daring Baker side of things. We made a Caramel Cake created by Shuna Fish Lydon. Her recipe can be found here.I wanted to like this cake. I mean brown butter and caramel sounds amazing. I was excited to make this cake and it's been done for weeks. But as reports from other Daring Bakers trickled in about it being mighty sweet, I got worried. Then I started thinking that maybe if I made tiny little bite sized petit fours I could handle the sweetness. Unfortunately no. These were far too sweet for me of the Brain and eventually most of it went trashward bound. The frosting was simple, and the salt made it excellent, but it was super sweet and on top of a sweet cake it was a bit of overkill. I even tried pouring some very dark chocolate over the top to cut how sweet they are a bit. But that only made them seem sweeter in contrast.
I think I would make the cake again. And I probably would make the frosting again, but I wouldn't make them together.
Make sure you check out the rest of the Daring Bakers!
I have heard the same thing over and over as well about the sweetness of this cake. It looks like you did an excellent job though with this challenge!!!!
ReplyDeleteYou had a good idea to downsize the cake and cut down on the sugar.
ReplyDeleteSorry you didn't like it! But, I think making petit fours were perfect!
ReplyDeleteI agree. I made mine small.Good idea abou the petit fours. We ate it it in tiniest wedges.
ReplyDeletea sugar induced coma just waiting to happen. :) Looks pretty though.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more! That frosting would be even more divine on something else.. like a spice or pumpkin cake.. *swoon*
ReplyDeleteI love the lil bites you made though.. very, very cute :D
xoxox
Although I did like the cake with the frosting, I like your idea about splitting them up. The cake on its own without frosting would be very good, I think.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it was sweeeet, but a fun exercise in the magic of sugar. We shared it with a lot of people!
ReplyDeleteI was really worried about the sweetness of the frosting... but maybe I just have an over the top sweet tooth, because I quite enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteIn any case... you did a great job... love the little cakes!
I agree that the combination was knockout sweet. I have a very sweet tooth, so I kinda liked it, but if I made it again, I would use a different frosting. My kitchen had a distinctly caramel aroma for days.
ReplyDeleteYour trepidations were mine, as well. But, mine didn't go in the trash!! We loved the cake, and it was just to our liking with the thinnest scraping of that delicious frosting. Hope you have better luck next month!
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ReplyDeleteVery sweet cake, i loved it being a big sweet tooth but shame you didnt :(. Hope next months challenge is better for you :) Still great job though.
ReplyDeleteTOo bad that these two things combined just wasn't your favorite. Looks great nevertheless!
ReplyDeleteI wasn't overly fond of my caramel cupcakes either, but it looks like you did a great job with the challenge--cutting through the sweetness with dark chocolate was a good idea!
ReplyDeleteIt was awful sweet. I think that is why so many made cup cakes. Petit fours would be good since they would be just little sweets. Let us know if you make it again and what you do with it.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was sweet, too. I read a suggestion by someone else to do the frosting with a dark chocolate cake, and I think that would be delicious!!
ReplyDeleteYes, both are excellent but maybe too much for many when together.
ReplyDeleteNice go with the sizing!
I'm so sorry the combination wasn't a better fit for you, but I'm glad you didn't consider the individual components a loss. Thanks for baking with us.
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