Daring Bakers August Challenge

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alasa or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

Each month there is a challenge with recipes and you are supposed to make that.
Recipe Source: The brown butter pound cake recipe is adapted from the October 2009 edition of Gourmet (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Brown-Butter-Pound-Cake-355435). The vanilla ice cream is from ice cream genius David Lebovitz (http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2009/02/vanilla_ice_cream.html), adapted from The Perfect Scoop. The chocolate glaze for the petit fours is a larger adapted version of this ganache from Godiva Chocolate (http://www.godiva.com/recipes/recipe.aspx?id=482) and the meringue for the Baked Alaska is a larger version of this meringue from Gourmet, May 1995 (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Lemon-Meringue-Pie-10149).
I made the cake and the glaze to the recipes provided.
OK I didn't make vanilla ice cream I made caramel the vanilla recipe would have been easier but since when do I let that affect what I am doing. I can't call it Salted Caramel Icecream because I didn't put the salt in Greg is not a salt lover and I did make the ice cream for him. Currently the ice cream is churning the cake is cooling...Cake you ask yes, brown butter pound cake recipe courtesy of The Daring Bakers website.
So I websurfed my way through three caramel icecream recipes and came up with this mixture. My cream was only 23% not the 34% recommended in the recipes so I substituted a cup of cream for the milk. Erin's recipe didn't have butter but Cindy and Davids did so I put in 100 grams of butter.

Peta's Caramel Ice Cream
1 cup sugar
100 grams butter - chopped into small bits.
3 cups cream - seperated into 1 cup and 2 cups
3 eggs
1/4 cup caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Firstly read the recipe through now this is not a read a bit do a bit recipe.

Put the sugar into a thick bottomed pan and place over low heat. Don't plan to go anywhere. You have to be right there not looking at the recipe (Like I did).
You need a fork to stir the sugar with as it toffees it doesn't matter if you get crystals this is for the sauce so don't panic. Stand there and watch it melt and give it a bit of a stir.
Let it colour until you can see a slight haze, it should be dark like it is about to burn. Take it off the heat and quickly stir in the butter and 1 cup of cream. Stir like mad and put it back on the low heat until it melts together nicely. Pour into a metal bowl and sit it in a sink of cold water (NO ice you are only cooling it.
Next I put the eggs and 1/4 cup caster sugar in the bowl of my mixer and beat them together. I also put the two cups of cream in the pot I made the caramel in and heated that until it was about to boil then tipped it slowly into the eggs with the mixer running as slow as I culd get it too.
Then I tipped the egg mixture back into the pot and stirred it like mad over low heat until it go to 150 degrees F on my sugar thermometer. Then I strained it back into the mixer bowl and back on low speed.
Next add the vanilla and then I slowly added the caramel mixture and let it whisk for a couple of minutes.

I strained all that into a metal bowl and sat it in the sink of cold water until it cooled and then I put it in the freezer until it was really cold. I did stir it a few times and Greg did a couple of taste tests to make sure it was alright...I think he likes it.
Then into the ice-cream churn, this was my first use of my new toy and I think next time I will let the mixture get colder and I am storing the bowl part in the freezer as I don't think it was cold enough the instructions said to put it in the freezer for 24 hours and it was barely that. But it had started to freeze when I took it out and put it in a container in the freezer to firm up.


I made cake and ice cream sandwiches and drizzled the chocolate sauce over them. The photos were terrible I must find my tripod.
These recipes were easy to use and tasted great I am really looking forward to tomorrow when the next challenge comes out.