Last week I noticed a post on David Lebovitz's blog with a recipe for Caramelized White Chocolate Cake. I was stopped in my tracks upon reading the post title. Caramelized white chocolate? What madness was this? How could I never had heard of this substance?
Lebovitz discovered caramelized white chocolate at Valrhona Chocolate School. To make this luscious treat, you put white chocolate pieces on a rimmed baking sheet in the oven at low temperature for about an hour, stirring the pieces every ten minutes or so, until you end up with what looks like golden brown liquid caramel and tastes a little like dulce de leche. Lebovitz provides the recipe here. I had some trouble caramelizing my white chocolate; although the chocolate turned a beautiful golden brown color, it never became liquid and retained a dry and chalky texture. I think this is probably because my white chocolate might not have had a high enough cocoa butter content, as Lebovitz mentions this as a potential problem (I used Orchid White Laelia from Albert Uster Imports, and I'm not sure of its exact cocoa butter content). I stirred in some heavy cream at the end and I was able to get it smoothed out.
After making the caramelized white chocolate, it's pretty easy to put together the cake recipe, which comes from Laura Adrian of Hidden Kitchen. I decided to bake the batter in regular muffin tins, and I ended up with 16 little cakes.
The texture of these cakes was quite dense, although I think I probably overbaked them a bit. They tasted strongly of white chocolate with a warm caramel-y overlay. The almond flour was undetectable. I think this cake definitely should be served warm. I'm not sure if the heavy texture of my cakes was due to the problem I had caramelizing the white chocolate; I'd definitely like to try this recipe again when I happen to have some high-quality white chocolate on hand.
Recipe: Caramelized White Chocolate Cake, from Laura Adrian of Hidden Kitchen, via David Lebovitz (see also Lebovitz's recipe for Caramelized White Chocolate).
Lebovitz discovered caramelized white chocolate at Valrhona Chocolate School. To make this luscious treat, you put white chocolate pieces on a rimmed baking sheet in the oven at low temperature for about an hour, stirring the pieces every ten minutes or so, until you end up with what looks like golden brown liquid caramel and tastes a little like dulce de leche. Lebovitz provides the recipe here. I had some trouble caramelizing my white chocolate; although the chocolate turned a beautiful golden brown color, it never became liquid and retained a dry and chalky texture. I think this is probably because my white chocolate might not have had a high enough cocoa butter content, as Lebovitz mentions this as a potential problem (I used Orchid White Laelia from Albert Uster Imports, and I'm not sure of its exact cocoa butter content). I stirred in some heavy cream at the end and I was able to get it smoothed out.
After making the caramelized white chocolate, it's pretty easy to put together the cake recipe, which comes from Laura Adrian of Hidden Kitchen. I decided to bake the batter in regular muffin tins, and I ended up with 16 little cakes.
The texture of these cakes was quite dense, although I think I probably overbaked them a bit. They tasted strongly of white chocolate with a warm caramel-y overlay. The almond flour was undetectable. I think this cake definitely should be served warm. I'm not sure if the heavy texture of my cakes was due to the problem I had caramelizing the white chocolate; I'd definitely like to try this recipe again when I happen to have some high-quality white chocolate on hand. 
Recipe: Caramelized White Chocolate Cake, from Laura Adrian of Hidden Kitchen, via David Lebovitz (see also Lebovitz's recipe for Caramelized White Chocolate).
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