The Daring Bakers Make Golden Vanilla Bean Caramels
This post is supposed to be about Shuna’s to-die-for caramel cake and the caramels are the optional challenge. I managed to finish the caramels but just ran out of time to make the cake. I’m very disappointed to miss a challenge, but I plan to make the cake for my birthday in January. I just can’t pass that one up!
Now about these caramels…
My love for caramel began as a child, a love that comes directly from my mother. I remember the blocks of Kraft Caramel that she would bring home from the grocery store, and she would cut off thin slices for us as a treat. Chocolate is delicious, but caramel has always occupied the top spot of my sweets list. Given a choice, I’d rather have gourmet caramel than gourmet chocolate, and I have the firm opinion that gourmet caramel makes gourmet chocolate taste even better.
Alice Medrich is a queen of chocolate and dessert, and she has published a number of books on the subject. This particular caramel recipe comes from her book Pure Dessert, and she offers several variations such as making fleur de sel caramels or adding cardamom or nutmeg. These are so creamy and delicious and they would make wonderful holiday gifts. This is also the base recipe for a decadent caramel sauce (see Variations below).
The recipe calls for two special ingredients: ground vanilla beans and golden syrup. The ground vanilla beans are exactly what they sound like, but I substituted a whole vanilla bean because trying to grind a vanilla bean didn’t work so well for me. If you purchase ground vanilla beans, make sure it’s made with virgin vanilla beans rather than beans that have been previously used because you will get so much more flavor. I have not seen it in any of our nearby stores, but it is available from a variety of online retailers (see Resources below).
Fresh Mint Ice Cream
In spite of our efforts to contain the mint, it spread beyond its designated area. We planted three different varieties (spearmint, chocolate mint, Bergamot mint), one plant of each in different areas, and each is staging a takeover. The plants spread by sending out shoots along the ground as well as seeding, and they expand very quickly. We decided to experiment with containment by planting the spearmint in a large nursery bucket (with the bottom cut out to allow for drainage) and set it in the ground. The other two mints we planted directly into the soil. The spearmint had more vertical growth while the other two spread quickly along the ground. Though not a strict scientific experiment, the results made us decide to continue setting mint in containers before putting into the soil.
Two weeks ago I went out into the garden, scissors in hand, and snipped the spearmint back into submission. By the time I finished snipping, I had three grocery bags full and the heady aroma of mint on my hands, arms, and clothes. It was a shame to wash it off. I gave away two bags of the mint and used the rest to make ice cream and jelly.
Michael was not thrilled about either the ice cream or the jelly and asked me to not make too much, but I just figured that meant more for me. The ice cream recipe comes from Cooking with Shelburne Farms, one of my very favorite cookbooks. At Shelburne Farms they make the ice cream using their own mint, cream, and honey. You can’t beat that for freshness!
Passion Fruit Macadamia Nut Ice Cream
My introduction to passion fruit (maracuya) came when I was teaching in Bogota, Colombia, where they enjoy a wonderful myriad of fruit. The locals and other teachers who had been there for a while taught me about the different fruits and showed me how to make juices from the frozen pulps that were available in all the stores. My favorites were maracuya and lulo, though I also enjoyed papaya, guava, and raspberry (frambuesa). Fresh maracuya is not widely available in our area, and when it is in the stores it comes with a high price tag. Goya has a range of frozen tropical fruit pulps that many of our local grocery stores sell, so I can still indulge my tropical fruit temptations without putting a serious dent in my budget.
This ice cream has been on my list of things to try since I saw the photo in my copy of Spain and the World Table. The food stylist made a simple and beautiful presentation with a single scoop of ice cream and some colorful edible flowers. Though the original recipe called for hazelnuts, I used some of our macadamia nut stash that I brought back from Hawaii, and we really enjoyed the combination.
Other Frozen Desserts You Might Like
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Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream
What to do with a beautiful bowl of cherries and a stash of vanilla beans on a hot summer day? If you manage to rescue the cherries before my boys eat them all, you can make David Lebovitz’s vanilla ice cream and add fresh cherries.
His book The Perfect Scoop needs no introduction from me, and in fact I have a confession to make. It’s been on my shelf for a year. An entire year. I flagged all sorts of recipes to try when I got the book last summer, and then it sat. As much as we adore ice cream, one would think I would start churning away the moment it arrived, but I waited. I wanted to try out the recipes in a new ice cream maker instead of the old Donvier we’ve had for years, which only gives so-so results. My patience was rewarded a month ago when we found a Cuisinart 2-quart ice cream freezer at our local Costco at a great price (less than the online price), and Michael decided I deserved a little present for all my hard work on the taxes this year. (April was bad, you don’t want to know.) Anyway, I have put the new ice cream freezer to good use!
The Daring Bakers Make Opera Cake
When Ivonne and Lisa, the venerable founders of The Daring Bakers, choose a challenge, you know it’s going to be a challenge. Think Buche de Noel (Yule Log Cake), or in this case, think…L’Opera!
Yes, Opera cake. Until now I’ve never tasted or made one, though I’ve seen them in posh bakeries, but I do have a very strong memory regarding opera cake that comes from a certain episode of Your Reality Checked, a show on Fine Living in which participants take time off from their regular jobs/lives to try something new. In this particular episode, a trained chef wants to try out being a pastry chef and she ends up doing a short stint at Porto’s Bakery. She’s given a big challenge…make an opera cake. Her first experience ends in failure and the cake is rejected. She tries and tries, and with a lot of practice and effort finally gets it right (almost). I felt her pain as she struggled with the cake not knowing that a couple years down the road I would REALLY feel her pain!
So at the beginning of May when the challenge was announced and I saw it was L’Opera, I had a flashback to that woman and her very public struggle and I started sweating. Michael asked about the challenge.
“Opera cake.”
“What’s opera cake?”
“Remember that television show where the woman wanted to be a pastry chef and she had to make this mondo cake with the G clef design on top and she had so much trouble with it?”
“Oh my GAWD! You’re making THAT?”
“I’m going to try.” Hopefully I sounded more confident than I felt. Read more
How to Make Vanilla Extract
November 5, 2007 by Andrea
Filed under Holidays, Make Your Own
Vanilla beans + vodka + time = vanilla extract
That’s pretty easy math! The process is simple and the equipment list very short: you only need a jar or bottle with a tight-fitting lid. There was a time when I would have said that the biggest part of that equation was the vanilla beans due to their cost, but the Internet is making them more easily and inexpensively available. If you buy beans by the half-pound or by the pound, you can save quite a bit of money. Check out the recommended list of online vendors at the end of this post.
The biggest thing you need is time, because the mixture needs to sit for about 8 weeks to reach it’s full potential. However, do not fret thinking that you are too late for Christmas gift giving, because you can start now and include a little note with your gift stating when the vanilla will be ready. It’s like a gift that keeps on giving! And if you plan to keep some for yourself, which you should, you can continue adding vodka and beans to perpetuate your stash. Read more
