Alpha Bakers: Caramel Buns, round 2

This is a redo of the caramel buns. I made another 1/2 recipe of the brioche and the caramel. The purpose is to try to redo the caramel. This time I paid attention and not suffering from ADD or KDD (knitting deficit disorder) or distracted with other things while the caramel is cooking. I had the heavy cream in the microwave ready to go. Even punched in 20 seconds on the microwave keypad thingy for the the cream, all I gotta do is press start. I have the butter soft, kitchen thermometer, pyrex cup sprayed with cooking spray, all next to me. Once the sugar mixture started turning a bit brown I stood watch, then heat up the cream, measure the temperature on the sugar mixture, it's 340'F - I took it off the heat (not just turn off the heat but actually moved the pot to the side - thought I'd clarify, having read earlier Michelle hilarious rendition of conversation with her husband). I poured the heavy cream onto the pot, it is bubbling super furiously (sorry no photo, tried to concentrate to much), put it back on the heat and mix until all is blended. Then poured into the pyrex cup and it's still liquid, no toffee in sight. The butter must be too soft because as soon as I add it to the caramel, it melts quick and won't blend (arrghh!) I then nuked the whole thing, probably too long because it then bubbled. When I add the vanilla it went nuts (first time seeing vanilla boiling....). And then onto cooling, well they still look liquid. I was still dancing hurrah, and then 15 seconds after adding them to onto all the buns, they are TOFFEE!!!!!!!!! what the hell?!?

I think next time (yes there's next time) I should just make the toffee caramel. At least I'm getting practice for Christmas cookie baking!

I am going to serve this with warning, please nuke it and eat at own risk. I am not gonna be held responsible for any damage to dentures.

Alpha Bakers is a group of bakers who are baking through The Baking Bible, Rose Levy Beranbaum's latest cookbook. Come check out the rest of the group at Rose's Alpha Bakers.

Click here for a full listing of all the recipes we are baking.

Alpha Bakers: Caramel Buns

These are fantastic. They are better than anything I have ever had or have ever made. They are not too sweet, even with the caramel on top. The fillings taste wonderful - the rum-soaked raisins really adds to the taste.

I keep thinking we are making cinnamon rolls or cinnamon buns because of the photo on page 473. I've made cinnamon rolls several times and that photo reminds me of it (sans the mason jar in the middle). But no, we're making caramel buns, which is basically sticky buns, or a fancy cinnamon rolls is how I think of it. We first make a brioche a day ahead. Anything that uses brioche is fancy, especially Rose's brioche. It's airy and soft and has a very nice taste. I've made the version in Bread Bible several times in a loaf pan.

I never like sticky buns. They are also super sweet and hurts my teeth. But I love these so much. So now I can say: I only like RLB's sticky buns.

HCB: Individual Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I haven't baked for two weeks. Last Sunday, after coming back from one of our little road trips, the first thing I did when I got home was to bake this cake.

It felt so good to bake. I didn't realize how much I would miss it! :)

HCB: Karmel Cake

This week's selection from HCB is Karmel Cake.I was pretty curious of how this cake would taste like. It looks pretty simple, the caramel being the main source of flavor. I was happy that it's going to be an easy cake as I was pretty busy this weekend and thought that I could whip this cake up in an hour.
This cake being so simple with no adornment, I thought it would be the perfect cake for my new Nordic Ware butterfly cakelet. I got it from Marshall's a couple of weeks ago. It looked so cute I couldn't resist buying.

This being a caramel cake, the first order of business is to make caramel. Mix brown sugar, milk, and butter over medium heat until it reached 238. The pour into a glass measuring cup. The caramel was exactly 1/2 a cup - perfect for my 1/2 recipe, so no need to add water. Then whisk in the remaining milk. To speed cooling, I placed the caramel in an ice bath.

Once the caramel cooled, I mix the dry ingredients, add in the caramel and eggs and mix. So easy.

1/2 recipe would be a 6 inch cake which is 3 3/4 cups. The cakelet pan is 3 cups. I thought I could get away with just using the cakelet pan so I fill up all the cakelets until it's about 3/4 full. 20 minutes in the oven, the cake rose a bit higher than the pan. I thought, no problem, I'll just trim it for the photos.

When I tried to unmold the cake, all of them refused to unmold. I pried and poked with my spatula and shook the pan and one butterfly unmold perfectly. The rest were disastrous looking. They looked like butchered and mangled butterfly - not pretty at all. I was pretty disappointed. The pan is supposedly non stick and I did use baking spray and apply them generously with a brush, going to every nook and cranies. Also, if you noticed from the picture, you see dark spots where the caramel crystalized. Rose said they should dissolve upon baking, and they didn't.

Tasting impressions:

I had some of the broken pieces of the cake when it came out of the oven and I thought it wasn't bad. Nothing special but not bad either. Once the cake cooled, hubby tasted it and here's how the conversation went:

Hubby: hm.. what's in it? what spice?

Me: there's no spice, it's a caramel cake.

Hubby: really? I can taste a spice but don't know what it is.

Me: there's no spice, it's the caramel that you're tasting.

Hubby: ok.

Me: so you don't like it?

Hubby: no.

Me: will you eat it?

Hubby: no, it tastes weird.

There you go folks. He actually deemed it inedible. This has never happened before! I wondered if I did something wrong but I don't think so (and no it's not just me being stubborn here haha). All my ingredients are fresh and I read over the recipe and didn't see any mistake. 

As for my tasting impression, the caramel flavor is not very distinctive at all. If no one told me it's caramel I would probably have thought there's a spice in it. It's almost like a nutmeg taste but not quite. Needless to say, this cake will not be on a repeat list :).