Salted Caramel Truffles

(Please excuse the ginormous gap at the opening of this post, I am on the verge of having a blogspot induced nervous breakdown where formatting is concerned.)

Courtesy of Edd Kimber's beautiful book "Say It With Cake", these truffles only served as fuel to my current salted caramel addiction. They were requested by my sister especially to top her Chocolate Truffle and Honeycomb Cake, the recipe for which will be up soon! 

They come with a warning though; it is hopelessly difficult to bake anything with salted caramel in it without devouring all the caramel before actually using it... and consuming one's body weight in salted caramel can't be healthy. 

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

300g dark chocolate 

300g caster sugar 

300ml double cream

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

20g light brown sugar 

20g unsalted butter 

1/2 tsp flaked sea salt 

cocoa powder, for dusting 

Method:

Put the chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl and set aside. Put the caster sugar in a medium pan over medium heat and leave until the sugar begins to dissolve and caramelize around the edges. Using a silicon spatula, drag the dissolved sugar towards the middle to help it dissolve evenly.

Once the sugar is fully dissolved and has turned a dark golden brown colour, pour in half the cream, and all the vanilla and light brown sugar, it will bubble up furiously, so be careful and go sl

owly. Once the bubbling has subsided, add the remaining cream. If the caramel is lumpy, put over a low heat and allow to melt. Once you have a smooth caramel, add the butter and sea salt, and stir gently to combine. 

Pour the hot caramel over the chocolate and stir gently to combine. Chill until firm enough to roll into balls. 

To make the truffles, have a small bowl of cocoa powder ready and a baking tray lined with baking parchment. Take large teaspoons of the ganache mixture and roll into balls, then roll in the cocoa powder and set on the baking tray. Chill the truffles until needed. 

Maybe it has something to do with my distinct lack of hand-eye coordination, but when making these I discovered I am completely useless at rolling things into ball shapes. Hence, these were more of squashed spheres. But that just adds to the authenticity really, doesn't it? I hope Edd would agree. 

These would make a perfect gift, just like my Fresh Blueberry Marshmallows!

Salted Caramel "Surprise" Brownies

Salted caramel is a huge craze at the moment, and i'm all for jumping on the band wagon and going along with it when it comes to something this delicious. Today, in honour of a get together with old friends for a 19th birthday, I made Edd Kimber's Salted Caramel Brownies. Delicious fudgy chocolate brownies with a layer of sweet and salty caramel baked into the middle - bite size heaven. The recipe for these can be found on Edd's blog here.

However, as I was making these, I had a few baking mishaps which turned them into salted caramel "surprise" brownies; the reason for which will soon become obvious. Here's the recipe:

Salted Caramel Filling
175g caster sugar
150ml double cream
10g unsalted butter
large pinch of flaked sea salt

Fudge Brownies
180g plain flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
300g dark chocolate, around 65-75% cocoa solids
150g unsalted butter
220g light brown sugar
150g caster sugar
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

To make the caramel, heat the sugar in a medium pan over a medium heat until it is browning and melting around the edges - make sure to cook it far enough – it should look like the colour of an old penny. Pour in half the cream and all the salt, be careful the mixture will bubbly up violently.

The melted sugar

Once the mixture has calmed down pour in the remaining cream followed by the butter, if there are any lumps place the pan back on the heat and stir until smooth. Take off the heat and allow to cool and then pour into a squeeze bottle (this makes it easier to spread the caramel later).*I didn't use a squeeze bottle, just poured it into a jug and used the jug to pour it evenly over the brownie mixture*

After the cream has been added.

For the brownies preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan. Grease a 9×13 light coloured pan and line with a strip of parchment leaving about a 2-inch overhang along the long edges to make removing the brownies easier. Sieve the flour, cocoa powder and salt together into a medium bowl and set aside. 

Place the chocolate and butter into a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water, and stir occasionally until the mixture is fully melted. Take the bowl of the heat and add the eggs, sugars and vanilla and beat until the mixture is smooth. Sieve over the flour mixture and gently fold together.  

*This is where I went a little wrong. It is advisable, to CHECK the bottle of vanilla essence you take out of the cupboard is actually vanilla essence.... not almond essence. Hence the "surprise" of these brownies is that they are also slightly almondy, due to me not checking the label on the bottle first! Oops!*

Divide the mixture equally in half and spread out the first half into the prepared tin. Using the squeeze bottle pour the caramel over the batter leaving a 1 1/2 cm border around the outside. You now need to spread the remaining batter over the caramel and this bit can be a little tricky. Edd suggests using a piping bag to pipe the remaining brownie mixture evenly over the top of the caramel, but I simply draped it over straight from the bowl and this worked nicely.

Ready for the oven

Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 until the a skewer inserted into the middle comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached, you don't want raw batter. Allow to cool completely before using a sharp knife to cut into squares. *I found that the brownie actually took closer to 40 minutes to bake properly*

Out of the oven - if only you could smell a picture...

Makes 15 perfect squares of oozy gooey goodness :) (12 if you fancy a slightly  bigger brownie.)

It just goes to show that no matter what your baking experience, everyone has a mishap occasionally, and these still tasted yummy despite being a little.. err.. nutty. It reminds me of a time many Hereford friends will remember when my Mum accidentally drizzled Vanilla Syrup all over pizzas (instead of olive oil) before cooking them!

Happy Baking! x