caramel - - Page 3

by bakersroyale

Cherry-Whiskey Upside Down Cake

I’m going through such a maniac state right now. I think my overloaded schedule has me in some sort of fit of always doing. Not that “doing” is actually resulting into anything productive. For instance if you follow me on Pinterest or Instagram, you see quite a bit of time has been sucked away admiring and trying to acheive some level of aestheticness that I’ve yet to figure out. What I have figured out is how to make a killer whiskey-loaded cake to impress the hell out of the dads in your life this Father’s Day.

Go ahead and show them that whiskey ain’t just for sipping or for licking. You truly can bite your whiskey with this cake. Here’s the quick rundown: the cake portion is tender and springy, not all all mushy as the bottoms of upside cakes can be. The whiskey gives the ensemble an extra subtle dimension that quiets the caramel topping and brings it in balance with the cake and fruity sweetness of the cherry.

If you like to bake, make this. If you don’t – well, there aren’t many times in your life where you can drink on the job, but in this case you totally can. Get in the kitchen and bake this for the dad(s) in your life, already.

Cherry & Whiskey Upside Down Cake

by BS

Are You a Supertaster?

For serious foodies, there’s nothing more embarrassing than being exposed as having a poor palate. Recently, I had a quite horrifying experience at Ample Hills Creamery in Brooklyn. Everyone in the borough has raved about their “salted crack caramel,” a deep, savory ice cream rich with the intense notes of burnt sugar. But when I finally tried Ample Hill’s caramel, I absolutely, 100% hated it. At first I thought there was something wrong with my spoon; that’s how much I disliked the strong, bitter taste of it. Even as three friends next to me all practically had a collective oral orgasm while shoving the ice cream into their faces, I couldn’t get the taste out of my mouth quickly enough. I went home and literally washed my mouth out. Not kidding.

What had happened? Is my palate too weak to support the taste of this cracked-out ice cream? Or…am I just a SUPERTASTER? Many of you have likely already heard about this concept. If not, here’s a brief intro from SupertasterTest.com:

Supertasters experience taste with far greater intensity than the average person. About 25 percent of Americans are supertasters, a group with an unusually high number of taste buds. If you love food more than most, you may have inherited supertaster genes.

Evidence suggests that supertasters are more sensitive to bitter tastes and fattiness in food, and often show lower acceptance of foods that are high in these taste qualities. Supertasters tend to dislike strong, bitter foods like raw broccoli, grapefruit juice, coffee and dark chocolate.

A-ha! So maybe it wasn’t a palate failure, but just an instance of my true taste bud elitism coming out. Clearly, the ES team needed to investigate this further. Armed with a packet of tests from Supertastertest.com, we got to work.

in Contests / Featured / Personal / Trends 4 comments

by bakersroyale

How to Make Homemade Caramel Sauce

Because of some concerned comments on our recent whiskey caramel marshmallow bacon bark, we figured it was time to roll our sleeves up and get down to basics with a homemade caramel sauce recipe. The method we used for this post is a wet vs. dry process (dry process being no water added to dissolve the sugar – this method is a bit trickier).

To begin, let’s talk safety. Wear an oven mitt if you can to protect yourself from any steam or splatters. To prevent anything from boiling over, make sure to use a pan that is at least 2 quarts in size. We also recommend that you keep a bowl filled with icy water nearby. Should any splatters hit your arm or hand, you can plunge it into the bowl. Resist the urge to put your mouth to any splatters that hit your skin or you will have a burnt tongue and lip as well.

If this is your first time making homemade caramel sauce and you biff it, no worries, we’re pretty sure most people do and did on their first run. Luckily, sugar is cheap and you’ll nail it on the second time.

Homemade Caramel Sauce

in Desserts / Recipe 0 comments

by bakersroyale

Whiskey, Caramel, Marshmallow and Bacon Bark

Yeah, so it’s a mouthful to say, but we’re betting you won’t mind once you find your hand-to-mouth addiction with this week’s bark.

In keeping with the theme of making the bark recipes as easy as possible, we bypassed making homemade marshmallows. Instead we used a bag of store-bought mini marshmallows and melted them ever so slightly on the stovetop, then spiked it with whiskey and poured that whiskey marshmallow layer over the chocolate.

If you’re wondering why not spike the caramel filling as well — good point — and we tried that. But it takes a lot of whiskey to edge out the strong flavor of caramel. In doing so, the caramel filling became too liquidity for a bark. So while that was a no-go for the bark, we’ll be bringing that whiskey-spiked caramel back for an upcoming recipe.

And since it seems we are never satisfied, we decided to go one step further and finish our whiskeycara-mallow with a spiced bacon crumble. Yes, spiced — that’s spiced with cayenne and black pepper.

There you have it—an ES style bark that’s equally sweet and spicy and a whole lot punchy, with all kinds of goodness.

On a tangential note, we used this Beka Bain Marie to keep the chocolate melted, warm and ready to go. Mighty handy for this series – thank you, Beka!

Whiskey, Caramel, Marshmallow and Bacon Bark

in Bacon / Desserts / Endless Bacon / Holiday / Recipe 65 comments

by bakersroyale

Edible Holiday Gifts: Samoas Bark

This year let’s bypass truffles and caramel popcorn for gifting and move into something way more fun — candy bark. Well, at least we think so, and since we a have a handful of fuss-free, no-bake candy bark recipes to share, ee’ll be sharing one new recipe a week until the end of December.

Ringing in the Holiday Bark series is a Samoas Bark. We’ve taken that Girl Scout cookie favorite and simplified it to a something you can make in about 20 minutes. They are perfect when combined with other edible Christmas gifts.

We’re also pretty sure you may find this damn hard to part with once you take a bite. See that soft caramel center getting all cozy and gooey with some crushed shortbread? Well that’s just the beginning. Nudging its way into that is a layer of toasted coconuts with more gooey goodness in the form of a caramel and chocolate drizzle…yeah, go ahead, take your heavenly bite and then put it down, wrap it up and give it up because tis the season for giving.

Samoas Bark

in Desserts / Holiday 30 comments

by BS

Cocktail O’Clock: Cider-tini

Apple cider cocktails don’t have to be hot. Here’s one that boozes up the seasonal beverage while keeping things cool.

Spiced Caramel Apple

2-1/2 oz Apple cider
2 oz Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur
1 oz Van Gogh Dutch Caramel Vodka
1 dash lemon juice

Rim martini glass with agave syrup and crumbled gingersnap cookies at set aside. Add liquid ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake well. Strain into martini glass.

Created by Kara Newman, author of Spice & Ice

Find more drink ideas in Endless Cocktails.

in Drinks / Endless Cocktails / Recipe 0 comments

by BS

Food Bloggers Give Panera’s Menu a Gluten-Free Makeover

Remember the team of activist food bloggers who took our list of America’s Top 10 New Sandwiches and made vegan versions of each sandwich? Well, Namely Marly and her team are at it again. This time, they’re giving one of America’s biggest bakery chains a GF makeover. Namely Marly writes:

I recently met a friend for breakfast at Panera and was surprised, nay shocked, to learn that they didn’t offer any gluten-free items at the bread bar. How could this be? Are they not aware of the growing number of people who are flocking toward gluten-free lifestyles?

The solution? De-gluten-ize the whole place! Namely Marly and her crew came up with gluten-free recipes for nine different items on the Panera menu. But will the bakery chain add any of these creations to their roster? Your move, Panera.