Rant: “Salted Caramel”

Even the President has gone crazy for Salted Caramels

OK people, we need to have a heart to heart.  There is a trend right now with “Salted Caramel”.  Look!  Salted caramel cake!  Oh boy!  Salted caramel mocha!  Wow!  Salted caramel ice cream! Sigh.

Gross.  Seriously people?  GROSS. This trend has been driving me batshit.

“Salted caramel” is NOT supposed to just be salt-y caramel.  Salted caramel is divine.  Salt-y caramel is disgusting!  What’s the difference?  Well, it seems this all started in France, where a famous candy store started sprinkling fleur de sel on their caramels.  The fad took hold and now every idiot from Starbucks to Wal Mart is adding a ton of salt to their caramel-flavored stuff and is selling to it the masses like it’s some gourmet flavor that has recently been invented.  Ug.    Call it “Salted Caramel” or “Salted Chocolate” and people are snatching it up and handing over fistfulls of cash.

OK, the soap box is out – and here you go… Salted caramel is regular caramel that has rock salt, fleur de sel, or another non-processed salt added at the end either on top as a finishing salt or it is folded in past the stage where the salt can dissolve and incorporate fully into the item.  You have to use specific types of salts that do not melt or dissolve so they remain in large crystals.  You do NOT want it to effect the overall composition of your treat and make it salty.

Why?  When your teeth bite into a crystal of salt while a sweet thing is in your mouth, it gives a jolt to your palate intensifying whatever you are eating.    It’s a trick on your taste buds and pleasure receptors.  This is an experience that does not happen with a big’ole spoonfull of table salt added to super sweet Criscocream icing, table salt added to the fake caramel syrup in your caramel mocha, or the table salt that Wal Mart is throwing in their cheap-ass ice cream.

PS – I’ve always had a salted chocolate cake on my menu, only I called it “Dark Chocolate Fleur De Sel” because I actually spend the money on imported fleur de sel from France.  But as a test, I changed the name of the cake to “Salted Dark Chocolate” and left the cupcakes called “Dark Chocolate Fleur De Sel” in February, just to see if people would respond better to the words.  Same recipe, same cake presentation, same cupcakes.  Guess what my #1 seller was last month?

Fleur De Sel... I mean Salted Dark Chocolate

Yup.  It’s a damn tasty cake, but still, I was very surprised at how many I sold just by changing the name.  So OK, I’m not above riding a fad to sell my cake, so I am permanently changing the name of both the cake and cupcakes.  AND… as an added bonus, introducing…

Salted Caramel Cupcakes - Devil's food cake with a salted caramel Swiss meringue buttercream made with imported fleur de sel.

Review: Georgetown Cupcakes (Packaging and Other Stuff)

Georgetown Cupcakes, home of the show “DC Cupcakes”, just broke the world record making the world’s largest cupcake.  TLC aired an hour-long special about it last week.  This is not a review on how I feel about the show, although I rarely watch it because it drives me up the wall (and this special was no exception), but I tuned in about 1/2 way thru because I caught wind that for 24 hours after that episode was aired, there was a promo code to get 40% off  cupcakes, and they ship all over the US.  With the promo code, shipping was practically free.  W00t!  I have no plans of ever being in the vicinity of Georgetown Cupcakes’ storefront and I’m a sucker for sales, so I figured, what the hell? I’ve blown $33 bucks on much stupider stuff, might as well order some.

But honestly, I was major curious how they ship.  I mean yeah, I wanted to taste their cupcakes but I REALLY wanted to see how they do their packaging, because as any professional baker will tell you, figuring out perfect packaging is like searching for the Lost Ark, and just when you think you have it all figured out you see a competitor come up with something way cool.  But also, there is lots of misinformation in the cake world about what you really need in order to ship baked goods.  I’ve read people say you need special kitchens, special permits, special nutritional labels, and pay special interstate taxes.  I’ve never found any documentation to back this up and the owners of my commercial kitchen says you don’t need any of that, but I figured, if there WAS something special, famed Georgetown Cupcakes would most certainly have it.

They ship via Federal Express overnight, and here is breakdown of what I got:

The Outer Box

The main box reminded me of a large folding shoebox made of super heavy cardboard.  It is super-branded, covered in pink with Georgetown Cupcakes’ signature black design pattern covering the entire box.  NO mistake of what’s in it and where it came from.  The only label on this box is the Fedex sticker.

Mylar envelope

Open the box and you see this – a padded Mylar envelope that is mostly sealed.  There is a card (tucked into the top of the envelope) that explains that the cupcakes were baked the prior day, shipped frozen, and to leave them out for 3 hours to defrost.  It had no nutritional info nor did it have an ingredients label, but did have the standard “food allergy” warning.  I don’t think that is a legal requirement, I think it’s done for liability purposes (but I could be wrong).

Inside the Envelope

Another box with this single ice pack.  Not dry ice, but a simple cheap gel coolant pack.  (reusable!)

The Inner Box

A better photo of the inner box, made of the same super-thick cardboard as the outer box.  Other then the logo on top, there is no other label on it.

Finally, cupcakes in sight!

Now we finally see some cupcakes, 12 of them in a super thick, plastic clamshell container.  I ordered a variety pack and pretty much chose at random.

Inside the Clamshell (from top left to right):  Strawberry,  red velvet, lemon berry, carrot, toasted marshmallow fudge, salted caramel, milk chocolate birthday, chocolate2, chocolate salted caramel, toffee crunch, vanilla, and lemon blossom

As if the packaging wasn’t enough, they have lollypop sticks inserted in each cupcake, I assume to keep them from hitting the top of the clamshell if the box is dropped or something.  I don;t see how that could have effected anything because these girls were frozen solid when I opened this box.

My over-all impression: I know cake is fragile, but it’s not THAT fragile.  The San Francisco hippie in me shakes my head at the waist of paper and resources that went into all this packaging.  Is it necessary?  Could they reduce some of it?  I think so.  I mean, these aren’t Faberge eggs, they’re cupcakes for crying out loud!

Oh, how did we like them, you may be asking?

Um, well…

Just to clarify, I got these to examine the packaging and to taste something that I normally wouldn’t, but the plan never was for my husband and I to actually eat these.  Please understand, I have cake available 24/7, so it’s not very often that we would eat, say, a whole one of MY cupcakes, let alone a whole dozen of Georgetown Cupcakes.  This is a pic of them today right before they go out to the trash to give you an idea of what we liked.  I believe these are the exact cupcakes that people wait in massive lines for and that nothing in flavor or texture was lost due to shipping. Hubbie liked the cream cheese frosting so that’s why you see the frosting missing off one, but honestly this just isn’t our type of cake… it’s too sweet for us.  But comparing these to say, SusieCakes or other cupcakes of the same fame that I’ve had, these are good, and I appreciate their price point (as opposed to SusieCakes, $3.00 for failed scratch cake with fake frosting from a can.  A can!  But hey, I guess it IS pretty genius to fill a failed sunken cupcake with frosting, turn it into a marketing ploy and call them “frosting filled!”).  Anyway, I really felt these Georgetown Cupcakes are priced appropriately and even though we didn’t eat all of them, I felt I got my money’s worth.

Gotta Try:  Toffee Crunch.  I swiped just frosting.  Meh.  I nibbled just cake.  Meh.  I took a bite putting it all together, and it was the tastiest of the bunch.  The flavors really worked well with each other.  2nd runner up was the Carrot cake.  Kind of a mystery to me, it seemed like a butter cake when most carrot cakes are oil-based.  Makes me want to experiment.  And with the cream cheese frosting (that hubbie ate all of), it was good.

Pass on:  Both salted caramels.  I know these are “fad” flavors, but if you are going to call something “salted caramel”, I want to taste salt AND caramel, and the chocolate needs to be rich and dark to work.

Completely gross:  Both lemon flavors.  100% artificial flavor.  They top them with those fake gummy lemons and manage to make the entire cupcake taste like it.  Complete mystery how they do it, but one I’m not willing to try and figure out.  Also, if I would have known they added so much pink food color to the frosting of the lemon berry cupcake, I never would have ordered it.  Bleach.

So there you go!

Have you had Georgetown Cupcakes?  What’s your favorite flavor?  Post a comment!

UPDATE 5/27/13:  I’m not sure which blog/website/Facebook etc has started to send traffic to this post, so thank you.  But guess what?  Crappy comments about how wasteful I am won’t be approved for public view and I have a little button called “delete” as soon as you try and post one, just so you know, in case you want to save yourself some time being petty, mean and douchbag-y.  Seriously, if me tossing this box of cupcakes was so offensive to you, guess what?  I throw food away every single day.  In fact, tons of perfectly good food is tossed in the US every day just because it isn’t pretty enough for you to buy it.  And just so you know, because some of you seem to be completely clueless, homeless shelters are NOT going to happily accept a 1/2 eaten box of cupcakes.  They won’t even take a NEW box of cupcakes.  If you’ve ever actually tried to take food to a homeless shelter, you would know that they will only take HEALTHY, NUTRITIOUS food to feed to people that can’t feed themselves.  And these cupcakes, kids, are as far from healthy and nutritious as one could get.  I know – I actually MAKE healthy(er) cupcakes and cake, and regularly donate to charities and shelters around San Francisco.

White Cake: Part 3 (with Recipe!)

Disclaimer:  I am no absolute expert, I only play one on the internet.  These are observations and techniques I use in my kitchen that work for me, my climate, my humidity, and my area.  Your individual results may be different.   

Alert the presses.  I’m finally posting Part 3 of my very popular White Cake series.

I wrote large chunks of this months ago, but didn’t want to post without pictures.  Then a few things got in the way – mainly my big pregnant belly.  At the time, all I wanted was to finish my orders so I could get the hell out of a hot kitchen and sit down and sleep.  Despite my plans to bake until the very end, I ended up shutting down the kitchen the last 7 weeks or so of my purgatory pregnancy.  See, I had complications.  Really annoying ones like gestational diabetes making me have to poke myself bleeding a billion times a day, ankles size of tree trunks, an aching back and glass in my hips, hands that seemed to loose all coordination, the attention span and comprehension of a gnat… and a demeanor that would make the Devil cower at my fat-assed feet.  Just to name a few.  But that’s all over with now, and I’m happy to report I have a very happy, very healthy bouncing baby girl.  Literally.  We can’t stop bouncing her.  She won’t let us.  She screams really loud.  My arms are really tired.

But I digress.

10 weeks have gone by since she was born and I’m back to work, which means I have ½ of a brain to get this out in the world since I have gotten a LOT of email asking for part 3, which is way cool.  What I still haven’t done is take pictures.  I suck.  So I’m winging it.

In my 1^st post I tried to mimic a boxed cake mix by trying to use oil instead of butter or shortening.  It didn’t work, and I don’t think it can work to get the results we want.  What this did for me was solidify the argument that those box mixes have way too many chemicals in them, so I hope I shined more of a light on that.

I received approximately 164 emails (164!) asking for my white cake recipe, and I’m really sorry I didn’t share it with you at the time.  Why not post my own?  Because it’s finicky and not that I don’t trust you or think you can’t handle it, but I decided I’d rather post something that is a lot more foolproof for the home cook – because that’s what we all want.  So I tested a few recipes and found one that is easy, moist, tasty, and is a billion times better then any stupid fake box cake.  I then gave this to my sister (who is NOT a baker).  And, well, if she can make this, ANYONE can.

But I’m going to take this one step further – see, there are lots and lots of recipes out there for white cake, but very few step by step instructions on how to actually make one or why you use the ingredients you are using.  Let’s face it, if you landed here, chances are you are tired of trying recipes that fail and you don’t know why.  So, I wrote a freakishly long explanation on how to make this one, breakin this bad girl down to take it one bit at a time, all in the hopes of a 100% success rate for all my readers (fingers crossed!).  So, without further ado….

 A Better Vanilla Cake, adapted from a Betty Crocker Cookbook circa 1950, posted on Cake Central,

With final changes and adjustments made by me

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees for cupcakes, 325 degrees for a cake  (UPDATE:  Everyone’s home oven is different – use your best guess for what temperature cakes bake the best in YOUR oven – you may need to bake at a higher temperature)

Should make 1 x 2 layer 8” cake with batter to spare and OR at least 2 dozen cupcakes.  Position your oven rack in the center or slightly below center.

5 oz. egg whites OR 6 oz. egg yolks (UPDATE:  Readers have reported success using 3 WHOLE eggs.  I have not tested but it seems about right).

8.75 oz cake flour

11.5 oz. sugar

3 ½  tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. plus 1/8 tsp. baking SODA

1 tsp. salt

1/2 cup whole milk OR buttermilk

3.5 oz. shortening OR unsalted butter

8 oz. sour cream

2 tsp. (or more) extract

First, you’ll notice most of the measurements are in ounces.  Well, ya’all asked for a foolproof cake, and I firmly believe if you want a foolproof cake you need foolproof measurements.  You can’t get that by measuring in volume (or cups).  Invest in a digital food scale.  You’ll end up using it more then you think you will and they are pretty cheep now. It also helps with troubleshooting if your recipe does not work.  If you carefully weigh then you know your ratios are spot on and it must be something else that has gone awry.

Next, you’ll notice you have options with your ingredients because this recipe bends like a reed in the wind, meaning it’s a great base recipe that you can modify to suite your tastes and to change the flavor.

1. Egg whites or egg yolks:  Use at room temperature.  Technically, a “white” cake is made with all egg whites.  A “yellow” cake is made with all egg yolks.  The color difference between the two finished cakes is marginal, call it egg shell to ecru.  The main difference is texture and taste.  A true white cake has a slightly dryer, fluffier texture and has an “eggy” taste.  It also makes your extracts really pronounced – meaning if you add vanilla extract it’ll taste more like extract.  OTOH, a yellow cake has a richer texture and a flavor that marries well with other flavors.  When you add extracts to it, the extra fat in the yolks enhances your flavorings and makes them bright.  My default cake is yellow.  But what to do with the leftover parts of the egg you don’t use?  I use all my whites in my Swiss meringue buttercream.  If you have left over yolks make them into lemon curd (or make more cake!).  Freeze either in an ice cube tray then pop the cubes into a zip lock freezer bag and they keep for months.  Bottom line, there’s no need to throw any part away because they store just fine and there is always a use.  (Update:  Again, I have not tested, but 3 whole eggs seems to work if you want to use whole eggs).
2. Cake flour:  Yes, you need cake flour, NOT all-purpose flour.  They are two different types of flour made with two different types of wheat.  I have successfully converted a recipe that calls for all purpose flour to cake flour, but not the other way around.  So for success, make sure you get cake flour.  Also, I don’t use unbleached cake flour, I can’t get the texture quite right, so stick with regular white.
3. Sugar:  Regular white sugar or superfine sugar, either works.  You can also use organic sugar, but I highly recommend you pass it through a food processor to break the crystals down since organic sugar has large course crystals which sometimes don’t dissolve all the way in the cake.
4. Milk or buttermilk:  Use at room temperature.  I prefer the flavor of buttermilk.  It lends a slight tang that boosts the overall flavor of the cake.  Most people think it adds fat and makes cakes more moist, but that’s incorrect.  Buttermilk is low or no fat and has less calories then milk, but what it does have is cultures containing acid for flavor and natural emulsifiers to help your cake come together and give it a nicer texture.  The more cultured, the more flavor.  You can use buttermilk in any recipe calling for milk, but you will always want to add baking soda (if there is none in your recipe) to help counter some of the acid.  If all you have in the house is milk, go with it.  Whole milk is best, but 2% should be fine also.
5. Shortening or Butter:  Use 68 degrees or colder butter, room temperature shortening.  Well, this goes back to my 1^st post about white cake.  I use butter, but as I posted about, using butter is tricky.  I suggest your 1^st time making this to use shortening.  If it works and you love the flavor, next time make it with butter and see how it goes.  You probably won’t be able to taste the difference.
6. Sour cream:  Use at room temperature.  Any sour cream will do, just make sure you stir your container if there is a puddle of water on the top.   I have also heard that you can use plain or Greek yogurt, but I have not personally tried it.
7. Extracts – want a nice vanilla cake?  Use vanilla bean paste.  Want almond cake?  Use almond extract.  Lemon cake?  Use lemon extract with some lemon zest (do not use lemon juice).  Coconut?  Orange?  Lavender?  Hazelnut?  You get my point.  Use any extract – just be careful and add it gradually because each has a different strength.  I taste my batter at my own risk with clean spoons despite the raw eggs to make sure my flavor is spot on and have never gotten sick.  Taste at your own risk.  Keep in mind the alcohol burns off while baking taking some flavor with it so even if your batter tastes strong, it should mellow.

OK, so I know you are going to ask, why no lemon juice?  Personally, I don’t bother for several reasons.  First, lemons are an acid.  Acid causes problems with your leavening agents (baking powder/baking soda).  Different regions, where we are in the growing season, organic vs. commercial etc. produce lemons with +/- pH so you could have one cake work by putting lemon juice in it, then the next cake not rise or it’ll deflate.  But here’s the thing, pH levels aside, the flavor of lemon juice bakes out of your cake, so you have to add a lot of it just to get any flavor in the first place, which then adds too much moisture… which also kills your cake.  You get much more bang for your buck by using lemon zest.  That’s where all the oil is, and oil does not bake out.  So skip the PIMA factor, pony up for a microplane zester and get some natural lemon oil extract.  It bakes into the cake beautifully and tastes like real lemons without throwing off your pH.  Stay away from artificial lemon flavor – it tastes like Pledge.

Now, mixing instructions.  This is the reverse creaming method using just one mixing bowl – trust me, it works.

Measure out your eggs in a small bowl/cup and your milk in a separate measuring cup.  Pour a bit of milk into the eggs and lightly whisk with a fork (a bit is like, a splash.  You only want to use a little bit to help break the eggs up so they will mix into your batter quicker when you add it later).  Measure all your dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt) into a mixing bowl and combine with a wire whisk. No need to sift unless your flour is lumpy (humid areas). Pour in your milk/buttermilk, sour cream and shortening/butter.  The only ingredients NOT in your main mixing bowl is your eggs and extracts.  Beat with the paddle attachment on medium high for 80 seconds. This builds the structure of your cake.  It’s a-ok if you only have a hand mixer, some have paddles, some don’t.  Use it if you have it.  Your batter should be somewhat light in color, a little thick and should start to slap the sides of the bowl with no chunks of butter remaining.  Overmixing is hard to do because you are using cake flour and there are no eggs in your batter yet, but undermixing can be a problem and could cause your cake to fall so mix every bit of 80 seconds.  When in doubt, go another 30.  Scrape the sides of the bowl.  Pour your eggs in 2 batches, mixing about 30 seconds or less between each addition or until combined.  Scrape your bowl.  Mix another 10 seconds or so.  You should have a decently thick batter.  Now you can add your flavorings.  I add mine then stir with a silicone spatula.

Scoop into lined cupcake tins or into your prepared cake pans.  Bake 20 minutes for cupcakes, 40 minutes for a cake or until done.  Until done, you say?  What the heck does that mean?  Well, don’t overbake it.

Yeah, a cliffie.  Sorry.  But that’s a whole post all on its own, because its not just one thing, its several things to get a perfectly baked, even, moist cake.  I promise, in my next post I’ll tell you how I do it.

Variations:

Strawberry or raspberry cake – replace all the milk/buttermilk and ½ of the sour cream with pureed berries.

Pumpkin:  replace all the sour cream with canned pumpkin.  Add 1 tsp. cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice to taste.

Coconut:  replace the milk/buttermilk and all the sour cream with coconut milk.  Add a handful of unsweetened shaved coconut.

Peanut butter:  replace ½ of the sour cream with peanut butter.

Marble:  Scoop out 1 cup of prepared vanilla batter and pour the remaining into your pans.  Add 2 tsp. cocoa powder to the reserved vanilla batter then swirl it on top.

UPDATE 3/6/13… Banana:  Sub out sour cream for mashed bananas.  Please disregard any comment below with different instructions.

Original posted recipe on Cake Central can be found here, but has problems and makes a ton of batter.

So let me hear it!  How did it go?  Have more questions?  Variation requests?  Leave a comment!