This month’s Daring Bakers Challenge was to make caramel cake, with the optional addition of homemade caramels. I decided to do both — I made the caramels in my apartment here in Berkeley, then brought them home to Atlanta for Thanksgiving. There, I made the caramel cake and frosting. I’m posting a day late because  I didn’t have my camera USB cord with me in Atlanta, and I was traveling back to California all day yesterday. I know you’ve been on the edge of your seat!

Sea salt caramels

Recipe from Alice Medrich’s Pure Dessert.

First stage of making caramels–getting sugar and golden syrup to 305F. I bought my first candy thermometer for this recipe, so now I need to make more use of it

After adding the cream and butter. Look at the sides of the pan and you can see how high it bubbled up at first! The key here is definitely using a very large pot. The recipe said to cook this mixture to 260F, but I only let mine get to about 248F because others had trouble with the caramels getting very hard (i.e. becoming toffee). Mine turned out nice and soft, and I was definitely assured I did the right thing when Barefoot Contessa cooked her caramels to 248F on the episode I watched today!

Caramel poured into pan to set.

After cooling in the fridge overnight, topping with gray sea salt, and cutting into pieces.

Greg helped me wrap all the caramels in squares of unbleached waxed parchment paper.

Finally done wrapping! This recipe probably made about 80 caramels.

Caramel cake with caramelized butter frosting

Recipe from Shuna Fish Lydon, http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2006 … he-recipe/.

Making the caramel syrup. I used a big pot because when you add the water to stop the caramelization process, it spatters a lot. I actually poured the water through a hole in some aluminum foil to avoid getting hot sugar on myself.

I was worried I had made the caramel a bit dark, even though David Lebovitz says it should be the color of an old penny. It tasted kind of bitter, but in the end,  the cake and frosting both ended up just tasting really caramelly.

Cake before frosting. My mom only had a 10-inch cake pan (not the 9-inch one called for in the recipe), so I didn’t try to make multiple layers.

After frosting and decorating with some caramels.

Yum! I had this for breakfast the next day too

This month’s challenge was hosted by Shuna Fish Lydon (http://eggbeater.typepad.com), along with Dolores (http://culinarycuriosity.blogspot.com/), Alex (Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo: http://blondieandbrownie.blogspot.com/), Jenny of Foray into Food (http://forayintofood.blogspot.com/), and with Gluten-free assistance by Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go (http://glutenagogo.blogspot.com/).

Check out their blogs for more info about the recipes!