Pomegranate, Salted Caramel and White Chocolate Pan Cookie

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

Delicious. Is just what this delightful pan cookie was. I have been wanting to make one of these for a while now, and it certainly did not disappoint. Crispy on the outside, soft and gooey on the inside, plus the addition of creamy salted caramel = YUM!

The combination of the sweet white chocolate, salty caramel, and the fresh little pops of the pomegranate seeds were a really great mix together. However, I also made smaller cookies on their own, which were delicious, but very, very soft, due to the amount of salted caramel I added! This combination is perfect for a pan cookie, topped with more pomegranate and some ice cream. Plus, these are so easy to make, and are a great dessert to share, or not to share 😉

Pomegranate, Salted Caramel and White Chocolate Pan Cookie:

Makes 1 pan cookie, and approximately 12 smaller cookies. You could halve this recipe for the pan cookie only.

125g butter, chopped and softened, not melted
1/2 cup brown sugar, tightly packed
1/2 cup castor (white) sugar
½ tsp vanilla bean paste/natural extract
1 egg
1 3/4 cup self-raising flour
Pinch of sea salt
250g good quality white choc chips
2 tbs salted caramel (I used a homemade one, but you could also use Dulce de Leche, Nestle Top ‘N’ Fill Caramel)
Seeds of ½ a pomegranate

Preheat the oven to 160c. Grease a small non-stick pan (I used a 17cm pan) with butter, and set aside. Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy, approximately 3-4 minutes. Add the vanilla, and the eggs, one at a time until well combined. Stir in the flour with a wooden spoon, until completely mixed. Add the chocolate, salted caramel and pomegranate seeds, and mix well. Spoon mixture into prepared pan, filling it to the top, and smooth over mixture with a spoon. Place in pre-heated oven, and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden. Let cool for 5 minutes, and top with more pomegranate seeds and ice cream. Enjoy!

FYI – you could easily use a bigger or smaller pan for this recipe, you would just need to adjust the cooking time, and keep an eye out for when the cookie is golden, or to your liking 🙂 Also, sorry for the crappy photos. I had to quickly snap away before the sun went down!

Triple Salted Caramel Mini Cupcakes

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

I made these super delicious morsels for the RSPCA Cupcake Day at work, and I believe they were quite the hit. Well, I’m guessing they were, as there were none left at the end! If you follow my blog, you will know I am the number one lover of all things salted caramel, and these cupcakes did nothing to change my opinion. They were yum. Really yum.

I’m happy I made the wise decision to make them minis, though. They were the perfect size. Not too big, and not too small. Just enough to pop them in your mouth all at once, to close your eyes and go to heaven for a few seconds. If I could have, I would have popped and definitely not stopped. I really am a shocker. As I sit here, I have a fresh tub of the biggest Nutella (one of my many other loves) you can get at the supermarket, right next to me, and a spoon clumsily hanging from my mouth. I may have slightly freaked out about the prospect of a worldwide Nutella shortage. Anyway, back on track…

Salted Caramel Cupcakes: (from Gourmet Getaways) Makes approx. 60 mini cupcakes

190g butter, chopped and softened
150g white chocolate, chopped
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup golden syrup
1 cup milk
2 1/2 cups plain (all-purpose) flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 170c. Line cupcakes trays with cases. In a large saucepan, combine butter, white chocolate, brown sugar and golden syrup, and place over a medium heat, stirring with a metal spoon until combined and melted, and the sugar is dissolved.

Remove from the heat, add the milk, and let cool for 10 minutes. Stir through the flour and baking powder until combined. Add eggs, one at a time and stir until combined. Fill cupcakes evenly, and bake for approximately 18 minutes, or until a skewer comes out of the cakes clean. Cool in tins for 5-10 minutes, and let cool on wire racks.

Caramel Maison: (this recipe is on page 245 of Adriano Zumbo’s cookbook)

220g pouring (whipping) cream
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped (I used 1 tsp vanilla bean paste)
120g water (this is just under 1 cup)
300g caster (white) sugar
60g liquid glucose (available at most supermarkets)

Place the cream and vanilla in a small saucepan over a medium heat and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat, and remove the vanilla bean if you are using one. In the meantime, place the water, sugar and glucose in a larger saucepan over a low-medium heat and cook until the glucose and sugar are fully dissolved, stirring occasionally. Zumbo says to use a clean pastry brush dipped in water to clean the sides of the saucepan in order to avoid crystalisation, however you can also just place the saucepan in really hot water with suds just after use and the sugar will melt off really easily. Increase the heat to medium, and cook the sugar mixture until it reaches a dark amber colour. This does take quite a while, and I was getting worried that mine would not work, but persistence is key here, it will eventually darken after 10-12 minutes. Very carefully stir the cream mixture into the sugar mixture slowly – be very careful because it spits and releases lot of heat. I found the best way to do this was with a spoon with a very long handle, as you want to keep your face as far away from the saucepan whilst it is spitting. If you don’t have a spoon with a super long handle, just add the cream really slowly and try to stir as best you can! Keep stirring as much as you can until the caramel settles down, then stir until completely smooth. Transfer to a bowl, let it cool to room temperature, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge.

Caramel Buttercream: (this recipe is on page 42 of Zumbo’s cookbook)

150g unsalted butter, chopped and softened
caramel maison (prepared earlier. Leave 2 tbs for the sauce to drizzle on top of cupcakes)
approx. 2 tsp sea salt

Place the butter in a bowl, and beat until light and fluffy. Warm the caramel maison in the microwave until it reaches a pouring consistency (mine needed 1 min, 20 seconds on high as it was in the fridge overnight), however, just warm it in stages to prevent burning the caramel. With the beater running slowly, add the caramel maison to the butter and continue mixing until thick. Once I had added about half of my caramel, I got a bit worried because it looked like it was curdling, however as I kept adding the caramel, it began to thicken up. Once you have added all of the caramel, fold in the salt. I did not measure my salt, as I used a shaker. So if you too are using a shaker, you can salt to taste.

Assembly:

Place your preferred piping nozzle in your piping bag, and fill with caramel buttercream. Pipe swirls/rounds onto cupcakes. For the sauce, take the 2 tbs of caramel maison left, warm in microwave until it is an almost liquid like consistency. Pour into a sauce bottle or similar, and drizzle over each cupcake. To store, place cupcakes in airtight containers, and leave at room temperature, in a dry area.

Pear and Chocolate Layer Cake with Salted Caramel Buttercream

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

My friend asked me to make a special cake for a very special occasion, and she gave me complete freedom to choose the flavours and look of this special cake. I was a bit worried, because I wanted it to not only be creative and interesting, but also a crowd pleaser. It took me a while to come up with the idea that eventuated into the pretty little thing below,and I kept umm-ing and ahh-ing about every last detail. I’m pretty happy with the result.

This is the first ‘naked’ cake I’ve made, and I must say I really like the look of the naked cake. It first worried me a little because covering a cake in icing kind of gives you a security blanket in that you can cover up all the flaws on the cake itself, but I love the rustic look, and also the autumn colours this cake has.

I have used the combination of pear and caramel before, and really, adding chocolate to this magnificent duo, is certainly not going to do any harm! While it may seem a little rich, the pear is a nice fresh hit when ~~paired~~ peared with the creamy caramel and breaks the decadence up nicely, even though I would be so much more than happy to down a bowl of that caramel buttercream on its own.

The recipes used here are nothing I haven’t made before, I’ve just adapted them a little differently. You can find the caramel buttercream recipe on this post for Caramel au buerre sale macarons, and you can find the chocolate cake recipe here – I have just made it into three round cakes instead of cupcakes. As for the pear, there is one pear, chopped, in each layer, plus the whole baked pear in the middle of the top layer. Enjoy!

Salted Caramel Bejewelled Profiteroles

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know how much I absolutely adore salted caramel. I have made choux pastry for eclairs twice before – once when we added 2 tablespoons of salt to the mixture (yes, that’s what the crazy recipe said!), and the other time, I undercooked them and they looked like little sunken balls of pancake. So, logically, I decided I would give them another go for Christmas Day lunch. Ta da 🙂

They worked! Thank goodness they did, because the world probably would have ended if they hadn’t. Once again, Taste.com certainly did not let me down, and I will definitely be using this recipe many times over. I already have used it since actually, and the result was just as great. So many people seem to think that choux pastry is a difficult thing to get right, and it can be if you get a little confused or don’t follow the recipe word for word, which can be really easy to do. If you are going to give this recipe a go, make sure to sit down and read it through before you make it – and understand each step. Otherwise, not only can it be really dishearteneing, it’s also a waste of quality ingredients and money 😦 The good news is though, once you do understand the recipe and know what to do from experience, your cooking will be much better for it 🙂 There’s my words of wisdom for the day!

Here is the recipe for Choux Pastry. The only part is, it definitely does not make 25-30 profiteroles like it says. It makes 18 at most, so if you want more, simply double the recipe.

Caramel Maison: (from p. 242 of Adriano Zumbo’s book, Zumbo):

•220g pouring (whipping) cream (35% fat)
•1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped (I used 1 tsp vanilla bean paste)
•120g water (this is just under 1 cup)
•300g caster (white) sugar
•60g liquid glucose (available at most supermarkets)

Place the cream and vanilla in a small saucepan over a medium heat and bring to the boil. Then, remove from the heat, and remove the vanilla bean if you are using one. In the meantime, place the water, sugar and glucose in a larger saucepan over a low-medium heat and cook until the glucose and sugar are fully dissolved, stirring occasionally. Zumbo’s says to use a clean pastry brush dipped in water to clean the sides of the saucepan in order to avoid crystalisation, however you can also just place the saucepan in really hot water with suds just after use and the sugar will melt off really easily. Increase the heat to medium, and cook the sugar mixture until it reaches a dark amber colour. This does take quite a while, and I was getting worried that mine would not work, but persistence is key here, it will eventually darken after 6-7 minutes. Very carefully stir the cream mixture into the sugar mixture slowly – be very careful because it spits and releases lot of heat. I found the best way to do this was with a spoon with a very long handle, as you want to keep your face as far away from the saucepan whilst it is spitting. If you don’t have a spoon with a super long handle, just add the cream really slowly and try to stir as best you can! Keep stirring as much as you can until the caramel settles down, then stir until completely smooth. Transfer to a bowl, let it cool to room temperature, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge.

Caramel Buttercream: (this recipe is on page 42 of Zumbo’s cookbook)
•150g unsalted butter, chopped and softened
•300g caramel maison
•4.5g sea salt flakes

Place the butter in a bowl, and beat until light and fluffy. Warm the caramel maison in the microwave until it reaches a pouring consistency (mine needed 1 min, 20 seconds on high as it was in the fridge overnight), however, just warm it in stages to prevent burning the caramel. With the beater running slowly, add the caramel maison to the butter and continue mixing until thick. Once I had added about half of my caramel, I got a bit worried because it looked like it was curdling, however as I kept adding the caramel, it began to thicken up. So don’t freak out until you have added all of the caramel to the butter. Once you have added all of the caramel, fold in the salt. I did not measure my salt, as I used a shaker. So if you too are using a shaker, just salt to taste.

Assembly:

Place the caramel in piping bag fitted with a small round nozzle. Gently pierce the bottom of the profiteroles with piping nozzle, so that the nozzle itself is inside the profiterole. Squeeze bag until profiterole feels heavier in your hand, and the caramel is slightly coming out of the profiterole. Gently scrape the profiterole on the edge of a bowl to get rid of the excess caramel. Repeat with other profiteroles. If you are not eating them straight away, refrigerate them until they are ready to serve.

You can decorate the profiteroles however you wish! You can see that in both cases I dipped mine in melted chocolate, and sprinkled them with gold edible glitter and cachous. For the ones with the white chocolate, I added some caramel popcorn dipped in chocolate. Yum!

Follow me on Instagram – GemmaAsh! X

Mars Bar Macarons

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

I’ve had the idea of doing something Mars Bar-sy lately, whether it was a macaron, ice cream or cupcakes (which hopefully I will get around to eventually!). I decided on the red shell because of how the colour the word ‘Mars’ appears on the packet, and I thought it would stand out more than a plain chocolate coloured shell!

I used both salted caramel and chocolate ganache for the filling and it is safe to say they were pretty yummy! Maybe next time I’ll try to make a bit of a nougat to stick in there as well.

Macarons:

This recipe is Adriano Zumbo’s, and was published a couple of years ago in the Herald Sun. You will definitely need kitchen scales to make macarons.

135g almond meal
135g icing sugar
125g caster sugar
45g egg whites
50g egg whites
40g water
¾ tsp Wilton’s colouring gel in red (I used ‘Rojo Intenso)

Preheat oven to 170c (160c fan forced). Spray four oven trays with cooking oil spray around the edges, and line with baking paper and set aside. Place almond meal and icing sugar in a large bowl, and sift together 3 times. Set aside, along with the 45g egg whites. Put 50g egg whites in a separate bowl. Heat caster sugar and water in a small saucepan, over a low-medium heat, until the sugar completely dissolves (if it slightly burns my tongue, it’s done!). If you do not want to burn your tongue, Zumbo suggests investing in a candy thermometer and heating the syrup until it reaches 118 degrees C (244 degrees F). If the syrup becomes thick and powdery in appearance, you will need to start again. This is because the sugar has been heated too much, too quickly, and instead of dissolving, it has cooked.

Begin beating the 50g egg whites with one hand, and with the other, stream the hot sugar syrup down the side of the bowl to create an italian meringue. Beat until stiff peaks form, the meringue should be thick and very glossy. If you want to add flavouring/colouring, now’s your moment. So add the colouring in now. Just lightly beat them into the meringue. Pour meringue into the almond meal, icing sugar and 45g egg whites mixture and mix roughly to combine. When combined, fold mixture together (one single stroke) until there are no air bubbles left. Make a spread across the top of the mixture, and it should disappear in about 20 seconds. Spoon mixture into a piping bag fitted with a round nozzle. (If you don’t have a piping bag set, most supermarkets sell plastic ones, they are Multix brand, in an orange box and contain 5 piping bags with a few different nozzles, plus they’re only about $3. You should be able to find them in the baking aisle). Lock the bag by spinning the top around 4 times. Pipe 3-4cm rounds on the oven trays prepared earlier. Tap the bottom of the trays on the kitchen bench and let them sit for about half an hour, or until mixture is dry to the touch.

Place in oven and bake for 7 minutes. Turn tray around in the oven and bake for another 7 minutes. To test, pull a macaron off the baking paper. If it is stuck, keep cooking and checking regularly. Cool on trays for 5 minutes, then peel off and place on a wire rack. The mixture should make about 12 -15 large macarons, and about 25 smaller macarons. Macarons keep really well (about 5 days in the fridge) and some say that the longer they are refrigerated, the more the flavour is likely to develop. Macarons taste best when they are stored in the fridge, then brought down to room temperature to eat.

For the salted caramel, I used Zumbo’s recipe that I have used before for the Salted Butter Caramel Macarons – it does take a while to make but it is to die for! I also used my usual recipe for chocolate ganache:

Chocolate Ganache:

100g chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup cream (doesn’t really matter which type but I use thickened or lite thickened)

Place chocolate and cream in a saucepan over a low-medium heat. Constantly stir with a metal spoon until completely melted. Pour into container/bowl/whatever and refrigerate until firm enough to pipe. I often make this ganache the day before and take it out of the fridge in the morning. Sometimes it may need 5-10 seconds in the microwave.

Assembly:

Like the above picture, place salted caramel and chocolate ganache in separate piping bags fitted with round nozzle. Pipe a circle of ganache on a shell, and fill the hole with salted caramel (it doesn’t really matter what order you do this in). Sandwich with other shell.

Yummmmmmmmmmm!

Salted Caramel Ice Cream with Peanut Praline

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

As I have said so many times before, I looooove anything to do with salt and caramel. And I love Ice Cream.

I got a proper Ice Cream churner for my 21st birthday a while ago and I had only used it once before, and my boyfriend has been begging me for a while now to put it to good use. So with some spare caramel I had in the fridge, here we are. And it was pretty awesome.

For the caramel, I used the Caramel Maison that I made for the Salted Butter Caramel Macarons. It worked really well, and the flavour was great. It took quite a while for the Ice Cream to be ready, but it was certainly worth the wait 🙂 I made a peanut praline to go with the ice cream, just to add a textural element I guess, but I also love anything to do with toffee, and pralines are so much fun to make. As soon as I made the praline though, I decided it would have been so much cooler with the addition of buttered popcorn. Oh well, next time!

Salted Caramel Ice Cream: (we adapted the recipe from the manual that came with the machine)

200g caramel maison, slowly warmed in the microwave until it reaches a pouring consistency (otherwise it will clump)
1 cup full cream milk, well chilled
500ml thickened (heavy) cream
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
3/4 cup granulated sugar (we used white – not caster, it is not quite as fine as caster, although you probably could use it if it was all you had)

In a medium bowl, use a hand mixer or a whisk to combine the milk and sugar, until the sugar is dissolved (about 1-2 minutes on low speed). Stir in the cream and vanilla. If you have a churner (I have the Cuisinart ICE-20A), turn it on, pour mixture into freezer bowl and let mix until thickened. If you don’t have a machine, never fear! Check out this great how-to by the amazing David Lebovitz. Just use the same ingredients, but follow David’s method. TIP – make sure your chilled ingredients are super, super cold. And if you are using a churner like this one, make sure your freezer bowl is completely frozen – no sloshing of water, and take the freezer bowl out after you have assembled the machine and are completely ready to go.

Well, ours didn’t thicken. So, we left in in the churner for about an hour and then decided to put the whole thing in the freezer (which is what they recommend for optimum results). The next day, it was great!

Peanut Praline:

1 handful of peanuts, I used unsalted but you could definitely use salted if you wanted
1 cup caster (superfine) sugar (I only used half a cup here but realised I needed a lot more)

Line a baking tray with baking paper, and place down peanuts. Don’t spread them out too far, but you don’t want them to be too close together, either. Place the sugar in a shallow frying pan, and ensure it is evenly spread. Cook over medium heat. After a few minutes, sugar will start to bubble and darken around the edges of the pan. Once this happens, push the darkened sugar towards the centre of the pan. The rest of the sugar will begin to melt and darken as well.

Once all the sugar has darkened to a light brown colour, carefully pour it evenly over the nuts. If you like the burnt and bitter toffee flavour, you could definitely take the sugar a bit further. I did a horrible job of coating the nuts, but as I said earlier, I needed a lot more sugar. Leave to set, this will happen very quickly. Once praline is completely hard, cover with a layer of baking paper, and use a hammer or a meat tenderiser to break up the praline. If you want large shards, don’t break it up too much. If you want it completely crushed into tiny pieces, almost like a powder, it is best to blitz it in a food processor.

Churned ice cream definitely has a different consistency to store bought ice cream. Even though there was a lot of milk and cream in the recipe, it still had a slightly sorbet-y like texture which I really loved. Whilst it was quite sweet and filling, it wasn’t too heavy and overly creamy like so many ice creams from the shops.

To serve, we topped the ice cream with a little more of the caramel maison and a generous sprinkling of sea salt. And a few pieces of the praline, of course. I really recommend making your own ice cream if you have the time. You can do it without a machine, so don’t let the fact that you don’t have one put you off! You can make your own flavours and add your own colours, and I promise that if you find a great recipe, it will taste just as good, and will be so much cheaper than a tub of Ben and Jerry’s 🙂

Caramel au beurre sale macarons (Salted Butter Caramel Macarons)

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

Caramel has always been my favourite dessert flavour. McDonalds sundaes, always caramel, milkshakes, always caramel. So when the idea of salted caramel became quite the phenomenon, I was delighted. Salt and Caramel are the best flavour combination, and when coupled with butter, really, how can one go wrong? Surprisingly, I had never tried making a real, homemade caramel. Although now that I have, I definitely think it will be a regular occurrence! So, here are my Caramel au beurre sale` macarons, my Salted Butter Caramel macarons.

The recipe I used for the caramel was another of Zumbo’s wonders. It is a two-step process and does take quite a lot of effort, but trust me, if you are a caramel lover, you will be in heaven, I guarantee.

Macarons:

This recipe is Adriano Zumbo’s, and was published a couple of years ago in the Herald Sun. You will definitely need kitchen scales to make macarons.

135g almond meal
135g icing sugar
125g caster sugar
45g egg whites
50g egg whites
40g water
1/2 tsp good quality cocoa

Begin beating the 50g egg whites with one hand, and with the other, stream the hot sugar syrup down the side of the bowl to create an italian meringue. Beat until stiff peaks form, the meringue should be thick and very glossy. If you want to add flavouring/colouring, now’s your moment. So add the cocoa now. Just lightly beat them into the meringue. Pour meringue into the almond meal, icing sugar and 45g egg whites mixture and mix roughly to combine. When combined, fold mixture together (one single stroke) until there are no air bubbles left. Make a spread across the top of the mixture, and it should disappear in about 20 seconds. Spoon mixture into a piping bag fitted with a round nozzle. (If you don’t have a piping bag set, most supermarkets sell plastic ones, they are Multix brand, in an orange box and contain 5 piping bags with a few different nozzles, plus they’re only about $3. You should be able to find them in the baking aisle). Lock the bag by spinning the top around 4 times. Pipe 3-4cm rounds on the oven trays prepared earlier. Tap the bottom of the trays on the kitchen bench, and let them sit for about half an hour, or until mixture is dry to the touch.

Place in oven and bake for 8 minutes. Turn tray around in the oven and bake for another 7 minutes. To test, pull a macaron off the baking paper. If it is stuck, keep cooking and checking regularly. Cool on trays for 5 minutes, then peel off and place on a wire rack.

The mixture should make about 12 -15 large macarons, and about 25 smaller macarons. Macarons keep really well (about 5 days in the fridge) and some say that the longer they are refrigerated, the more the flavour is likely to develop. Macarons taste best when they are stored in the fridge, then brought down to room temperature to eat.

Caramel Maison: (this recipe is on page 245 of Adriano Zumbo’s cookbook)

220g pouring (whipping) cream (35% fat)
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped (I used 1 tsp vanilla bean paste)
120g water (this is just under 1 cup)
300g caster (white) sugar
60g liquid glucose (available at most supermarkets)

Caramel Buttercream: (this recipe is on page 42 of Zumbo’s cookbook)

150g unsalted butter, chopped and softened
300g caramel maison
4.5g sea salt flakes

Place the butter in a bowl, and beat until light and fluffy. Warm the caramel maison in the microwave until it reaches a pouring consistency (mine needed 1 min, 20 seconds on high as it was in the fridge overnight), however, just warm it in stages to prevent burning the caramel. With the beater running slowly, add the caramel maison to the butter and continue mixing until thick. Once I had added about half of my caramel, I got a bit worried because it looked like it was curdling, however as I kept adding the caramel, it began to thicken up. So don’t freak out until you have added all of the caramel to the butter 🙂 Once you have added all of the caramel, fold in the salt. I did not measure my salt, as I used a shaker. So if you too are using a shaker, just salt to taste.

Place caramel buttercream in a piping bag with a round nozzle, and pipe 1/2 – 3/4 tsp onto a macaron shell, and sandwich with another. Place in refrigerator to set. Bring macarons down to room temperature to serve.

If you are not up to making macarons just yet, this caramel buttercream could be used for so many different things. It would be great mixed into a hot chocolate, in a milkshake, or as a topping over ice cream. You could also use it as a tart filling, and even as icing on a cupcake. Mmm…I’m getting hungry just thinking about them all!

Have a great weekend! X

Salted Caramel, Chocolate Mousse and Brownie Stackers

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

Some may call it sad, but I made my own birthday cake. I decided it was just a chance to try something new and different, and new and different this certainly was. I combined my three all-time favourite desserts/flavours/textures – salted caramel, chocolate mousse and rich, chocolate brownie to create this mouthwatering mini tower.

It was the first time I had ever used a ring mould, and it actually worked quite well. It all sounded great in my head, but when I started stacking the pieces together I began to slightly freak out because brownie was breaking, caramel was sticking to everything and I was becoming covered in mousse! Uh oh. But they worked, a bit messier than I had imagined, but that’s okay.

The taste of these ‘stackers’ was seriously out of this world! I’m not sure what I was expecting, but they were so good. The mousse was quite bitter, as I mainly used 70% chocolate, but when combined with the sweet and salty, thick caramel, it really worked. I also used 70% chocolate in the brownie, so the cake on a whole was still extremely rich and decadent, but it was far from sickly sweet which is what I wanted to achieve.

I simply used three different recipes (doubled the quantity for the brownie and the mousse) and stacked away. It did take me a while, but it really wasn’t that difficult. It’s definitely well worth it if you’re a chocolate and caramel feind like me 🙂

Janelle Bloom’s Chocolate Brownie Base: (this recipe is from Janelle Bloom’s ‘Fast, Fresh and Fabulous’ – a great book. This is actually the base for an amazing New York baked cheesecake). Makes 8-10 stackers.

200gm dark chocolate, chopped
200gm butter, chopped
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 cup caster (white) sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup of plain (all-purpose) flour
4 tablespoons self-raising flour

Preheat oven to 185c fan forced. Grease and line 2 oven trays 1-2cm deep. Although, you could really use any oven proof dish, just spread the mixture 1-2cm thick. Place chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl, and microwave on high for 2 minutes. Stir until smooth. Whisk in cocoa powder until smooth. Stir in flours, sugar and eggs until well combined. Spread mixture evenly over base of prepared trays. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Don’t worry if the mixture is still a little soft. Cool for 15 minutes, then refrigerate while mixture is still in trays. Tip – make sure the mixture is completely cold before the circles are pressed out. There is a LOT of butter in this recipe, so it really needs to be hardened otherwise it will crumble to pieces (yes, this did happen!).

When brownie mixture is completely cold, press out circles with the ring moulds. There should be about 16-20 circles. When finished, refrigerate in an airtight container.

The Chocolate Mousse I made is from Taste.com, and it is really yummy and fairly simple. I doubled the quantities of the recipe, and it made HEAPS! If you don’t want mousse for lunch for the next week, maybe just do another half of the recipe. Obviously, I did not use the extra cream or the cherries.

Salted Caramel:

2 cans sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon sea salt flakes

Remove paper from condensed milk cans, and place them in a large saucepan, lying down. Cover with boiling water and simmer for 3 hours, occasionally topping up the water to ensure cans are always covered. Remove cans from saucepan and let cool for 20-30 minutes. Open with a can opener, and pour caramel into a large bowl. Add salt flakes and stir to combine. You can use as much or as little salt as you like, but I usually stick to half a teaspoon per can of caramel. If using on the day, make sure caramel is completely cooled. Otherwise, refrigerate overnight.

Assembly:

Now for the fiddly part! To begin assembling, place a brownie circle inside the bottom of the ring mould.

Place two teaspoons of salted caramel on top of the first brownie and smooth evenly. Place another brownie on top of the salted caramel layer.

Place 2 generous teaspoons of mousse on top of the second brownie layer, and smooth evenly.

Now cross your fingers and toes! To release the cake from the mould, gently tap cake on the bench until it begins to slip out from the mould. Once this has happened, you can either very gently pull the brownie further and further until it comes out, or keep tapping. It should look a little something like this…

They were a bit messier than I would have liked, so I tied a ribbon around each stacker in an attempt to make them neater! If you’re a perfectionist like me, use a round edged knife or a cheese knife and some warm water to smooth the tops and the edges.

Happy Baking! X

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