My first Daring Bakers' Challenge - Caramel Cake

My first Daring Bakers Challenge! I've read about them, gone through the members' blogroll and were amazed at the skills and creativity its members. I was excited to be part of the team and November will be my first challenge and what a challenge!

This month hosts are Doleres (from Culinary Curiosity), Alex (from Blondie and Brownie), Jenny(from Foray into Food) and Natalie (from Gluten-a-Go-Go) and the challenge is caramel cake with caramelised butter frosting. This recipe is from Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater and this is her signature cake. Shuna's notes for this cake starts like this 'This is one of those cakes that is truly about baking. It may sound strange because aren't all cakes about baking? What I mean is that getting this cake to bake is about balancing fat with acid and protein JUST RIGHT........'.

I was worried. I doubted whether I could get it right especially when the recipe was not given in weights but in terms of cups and tablespoons... Furthermore, this will be my very first attempt with caramel.

The recipe indicated that it is for a high 9 inch cake and I had read in the forum that its very sweet, so I halved the recipe and baked in a 7 inch round. Here is the result of my attempt.

My cake ended up very flat! I decided against decorating it like a usual round cake, so I used a cutter to cut a small flower shape, layered it and fill with the caramelised butter frosting. Piped little stars on top and drizzled with caramel syrup. Made a couple of these.

The taste? Too sweet for me and family. The caramelised butter frosting is very sweet, but is very delicious. Never tried frosting made with browned butter before, its really very nice.

The recipe can be found at http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2006/12/24/caramel-cake-the-recipe/