Sweet and Salty Cake

A few weeks ago, we had a potluck at work. There was a sign-up sheet with various spaces to put down your name, with only two dessert spots. I immediately claimed one by putting 'chocolate something' on the list. Someone had already taken the first dessert spot with 'carrot cake', so I thought there should be some contrast.

As for what 'chocolate something' entailed, I wasn't certain until I remembered a cake I've seen making the rounds. Baked bakery's Sweet and Salty Chocolate Cake. The cookbook is on my Christmas list, but this recipe is on Martha Stewart's website.

I wanted a challenge, and boy was this a challenge! A fun one though. I'd been wanting to make a layer cake for a while. I want to be the cake-baker among my friends, the one people come to for a cake. I figured to become that person, I better start baking cakes. So I went out and bought some cake pans. I had one 8" pan, but this is a 3-layer cake after all!

I won't repeat the recipe here, but I will tell you what I found out.

That recipe makes a lot of icing. They said the caramel would do a couple cakes, and the ganache recipe would do one. This is NOT true. I actually made two of these cakes; one was a test that I took to our D&D night a couple days before the potluck. It was a completely different set of people, so no one got bored by cake. :) One recipe of ganache completely iced both cakes. Granted, I don't actually like icing on cakes, so I probably spread it thinner than the bakery does, but it would've been pretty overwhelming to have it all on one cake.

I needed two goes at the caramel, but that is more because my candy thermometer is a piece of junk. This I should know already, from my first adventure in cooking with Lester, on the fateful day we tried to make marshmallows. I have a feeling the caramel was supposed to be caramel-coloured rather than white, but I didn't want to risk burning it again.

I also ended up buying a Cupcake Courier (seen in the background of the top photo). If I do want to be cake lady, I need some snazzy transport. I'm also very excited by all the cupcake blogs out there, and want to try some of those for treats to bring in to work.

The cakes were well received at both events, and provided great snacks at work for the next few days. You only need tiny, sliver-like slices of this cake, even with my stingy icing job. The salted caramel is great, it cuts the sickly-sweetness of all the chocolate in the ganache (an entire POUND!). I used a hodge-podge of baking chocolate squares, which I think worked out to 6oz dark, 8oz unsweetened, and 2oz bittersweet.

Definitely put it in the fridge before transporting. The first cake needed to go in the car as soon as I finished icing, and I actually ended up using skewers to pin the layers together so it wouldn't slip apart. The second one had some time in the fridge (top photo) so it was good and sturdy. The Cupcake Courier worked well on my 15 minute walk to work. And I only got a few weird looks!

Recipe: Eve's Pudding

It's that time of year again. The time when apples are popping up wherever you look. I have been innundated in apples for the past few weeks. Luckily, I have had some variety though; Lester brought me 3kg of teeny, tart little green apples. Just as I was almost done with those, I came out to my parents' house in BC to house sit. They have not one, but TWO apple trees. Luckily for my sanity, one has a grand total of 7 apples on it. The other one is a different story.

Spindly, yes. But fruitful. Dad planted these just after we moved to this house 10 years ago. He also planted some plum trees that have produced nary a plum.
But back to the first of many apple recipes I have saved up for you readers.

I have been trawling the internet for any and all apple recipes I can find. You see so many recipes that look promising, but then I read the ingredients, and there's that disheartening line that says 'peel and core one apple'. I don't have one apple. I have bushels. I don't want to make 12 muffins and only use one apple.

I have a bit of a confession: I don't like eating raw apples. And I despise apple juice. If I do eat raw apples, I like them cut up. I got out of the habit of raw apples when I had braces, and never got back in.

This recipe used 3 apples, which was slightly better. Right now I'm hampered by the fact that I'm alone in this city; any friends I once had here have moved away. So I want to use lots of apples, but not eat myself into being an apple blimp.

Eve's Pudding is a British recipe, so forget your colonial thoughts of pudding being a mysterious, wobbly, semi-solid. Pudding just means dessert, so forget the Jello (can I put apples in Jello?). It is basically just apples, topped with a traditional Victoria sponge cake. The sponge creates a lid for the baking vessel, which means the apples get steamed so they are nice and tender.

Whenever recipes say to peel the apples, I ignore that. I think a lot of the flavour is in the peel, not to mention fibre and nutrients. I grew up with apple trees in the garden my whole life, and have never felt the need to peel them before eating. Scared of bug footprints? Rise 'em, but you don't need to wrestle off that scary outer layer that has (gasp) touched the outside world.

This recipe was nice, easy, and has a good ratio of apples to other stuff. Right now I want more apples than other stuff, for the aforementioned reason of not wanting to become as round as an apple. The original recipe (found here, at Curiously Ravenous) mentioned milk in the directions, but not in the ingredients. I looked around at other Victoria Sponge recipes, and none of them called for milk, so I left it out.

Eve's Pudding
for the Victoria Sponge Cake:

1 1/4 cup flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 Tbsp sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3 apples, peeled and cored
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch salt

1. Slice apples into thin 1/8" slices. Gently toss with 1/4 cup sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Set aside.

2. Preheat oven to 350F. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, cream together butter and sugar with a mixer until it becomes smooth and pale. Alternately add in the eggs and flour mixture. Do not over beat.

3. Spoon apples into 6 to 8 single-serving ramekins or one 48oz souffle pan, about 3/4 of the way full. Pour any remaining juices over the apples. (I just mixed my apples etc. in the 1.5L Corningware dish I wanted to cook the pudding in. Saves cleaning one bowl!)

4. Spoon batter over the apples and level out the batter to form a flat seal to cover the fruit (a flat spatula might make this easier, but I used a wooden spoon). Sprinkle the top with sugar.

5. Bake for 45 minutes.

After 45 minutes, my sponge was not entirely cooked in the middle, so make sure to check before you turn the oven off.