I ADORE caramel, in any manner, shape or form. Hot caramel sauce, sticky toffee puddings, butterscotch candies ... I haven't yet met a caramel I haven't liked. And don't even get me started on Garrett's phenomenal Caramel Popcorn, otherwise known as Heart-Attack in a Bag. Have you tried it? You should. Just have a defibrillator ready. Because I assure you, you will finish the whole bag yourself.
I guess it is no surprise then, that I was smitten the moment I saw Rose Levy Beranbaum's Karmel Cake recipe. I mean, it's made from a WHOLE CUP of caramel. It had me at "Hello".
When making caramel, I like to take it to the limit - from honey to amber to dark amber-brown - the the point where it is almost burnt, or you could say, scorched. I find that makes the best, full-bodied and complex-flavoured caramel. Undercooked caramel is just sweet in a one-toned, supermarket-confection, kids' candy sort of way. And nowhere as exciting on the palate as scorched caramel. Of course accidents can happen when you try to make burnt caramel. It's important to note that when chefs say burnt caramel, they really mean almost-burnt caramel, not burnt-black-as-coal burnt caramel. The latter is what happens when you play Angry Birds on your iPhone while waiting for your caramel to darken. And is good for nothing except giving your arms a good workout when you scour the pot.
Beranbaum's Karmel Cake recipe is really quite perfect on its own. But of course, being the meddler that I am, I had to tinker with it. And so, instead of using light caramel (softball stage), I used burnt caramel. This produced a beautifully fragrant cake, but also a cake with a darker brown crust, which admittedly did not look as pretty as Beranbaum's unadorned honey golden Karmel cake. Not that it really mattered, because I had already decided that it would become a layer cake. The result? Two layers of coffee-moistened burnt caramel cake, filled with Kahlua-flavoured coffee whipped cream and whipped chocolate frosting. The burnt caramel cake is good enough to eat on its own, but the coffee cream complements it so beautifully you would probably not want to leave that out.
