Just when I was planning the menu for a dinner party earlier this month, our October 2012 issue of Bon Appétit arrived in the mail, and it gave me some great ideas. I made the Carmelized Onion and Shallot Dip as a starter, and it was delicious -- although to be honest, I'm not sure that it was worth the two hours of effort required to make it, because it's not that much better than grocery store onion dip. I can also heartily recommend the Butternut Squash Tart with Fried Sage. (I had planned to make this as another starter for the dinner party but sadly ran of out time; Tom and I enjoyed it for dinner the following night since I had already defrosted the store-bought puff pastry and had to do something with it.)
But I was most excited about making the Salted Caramel "Ding Dong" Cake for dessert. It's a two-layer chocolate cake filled with chocolate-caramel ganache and marshmallow, covered in more ganache and sprinkled with flaky salt. What's not to love about that? I made all of the components and assembled the cake in a cake ring. I followed all of the directions exactly, including the overnight chilling time before unmolding the cake and putting on the final layer of ganache. The cake looked hideous. The ganache did not set properly (even with plenty of chilling time in the fridge), and thus the ganache coating on the top and sides of the cake was very thin and the surface was rough and unattractive. The top layer of the cake was not securely adhered to the bottom layer, so the entire thing was wildly askew and it really looked like some sort of grade school home economics project. I was so distressed that I didn't even take a picture.
Fortunately, I usually make more than one dessert, and since I had some Jonathan apples from the farmer's market, I also made an Apple Tart with Caramel Sauce from epicurious.com. This tart was quite easy. You make the crust in the food processor (flour, powdered sugar, salt, chilled butter, egg yolks), and chill it before rolling it out and lining the tart pan. You don't even need to blind bake it. You simply top the raw rolled-out crust with quartered apples that have been tossed with sugar, flour, cinnamon, and cardamon, and then bake. When the tart is hot out of the oven, you brush the apples with a caramel sauce made by cooking dark brown sugar, whipping cream, and butter.
.JPG)
This tart turned out to be fantastic; I served it with vanilla ice cream and more of the (warmed) caramel sauce on the side. The crust was buttery and crisp, the cinnamon apples were perfectly tender, and the caramel sauce put it over the top. I stored a couple of leftover pieces at room temperature covered in plastic wrap, and the crust was completely soggy and inedible the following day (perhaps if I had stored them in the fridge they would have been okay).
I still served the salted caramel ding dong cake for those who wanted a chocolate dessert, and I have to admit -- it wasn't bad. The cake was tender and chocolatey, and the flavor combination of cake with the marshmallow and caramel ganache was great. But I need to figure out some way to make the ganache work before I ever try it again. As it turns out, the ding dong cake was also just the beginning of my chocolate cake heartache... But more on that in my next post.
Recipe: "Apple Tart with Caramel Sauce" from epicurious.com.
But I was most excited about making the Salted Caramel "Ding Dong" Cake for dessert. It's a two-layer chocolate cake filled with chocolate-caramel ganache and marshmallow, covered in more ganache and sprinkled with flaky salt. What's not to love about that? I made all of the components and assembled the cake in a cake ring. I followed all of the directions exactly, including the overnight chilling time before unmolding the cake and putting on the final layer of ganache. The cake looked hideous. The ganache did not set properly (even with plenty of chilling time in the fridge), and thus the ganache coating on the top and sides of the cake was very thin and the surface was rough and unattractive. The top layer of the cake was not securely adhered to the bottom layer, so the entire thing was wildly askew and it really looked like some sort of grade school home economics project. I was so distressed that I didn't even take a picture.
Fortunately, I usually make more than one dessert, and since I had some Jonathan apples from the farmer's market, I also made an Apple Tart with Caramel Sauce from epicurious.com. This tart was quite easy. You make the crust in the food processor (flour, powdered sugar, salt, chilled butter, egg yolks), and chill it before rolling it out and lining the tart pan. You don't even need to blind bake it. You simply top the raw rolled-out crust with quartered apples that have been tossed with sugar, flour, cinnamon, and cardamon, and then bake. When the tart is hot out of the oven, you brush the apples with a caramel sauce made by cooking dark brown sugar, whipping cream, and butter.
.JPG)
I still served the salted caramel ding dong cake for those who wanted a chocolate dessert, and I have to admit -- it wasn't bad. The cake was tender and chocolatey, and the flavor combination of cake with the marshmallow and caramel ganache was great. But I need to figure out some way to make the ganache work before I ever try it again. As it turns out, the ding dong cake was also just the beginning of my chocolate cake heartache... But more on that in my next post.
Recipe: "Apple Tart with Caramel Sauce" from epicurious.com.
Comments