Tart Baby

At our house our essential condiments are hot sauce, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and some sort of fancy finishing salt. We were given a selection of salts two Christmases ago, and we've been slowing working our way through them ever since. We can now debate the qualities of Hawaiian pink salt versus French sea salt but I digress. As far as I am concerned salt's best friends are chocolate and caramel. They all work together so well they should really hang out more often.

I needed to bake something small, chocolaty and portable for a girl's night out. So I started by doubling my Grandmother's fudge pie recipe and went from there. I skipped the crust and put them into cupcake tins. I switched out the Hershey's cocoa for some fancy cocoa from PCC, switched the vanilla extract for almond extract and added caramel candies to the center. I cooked them for about half as long as usual and then added fleur de sel to the tops as they cooled. The result was my first real original baking recipe - Sunken Chocolate Caramel Cakes.

I erred on the side of under baking these, as nothing is worse than a dry cake. The end result was that the texture was somewhere between a brownie and a molten chocolate cake with the crust being chewy and sticky. The salt on top really made it. And while it is tempting to thoroughly douse the cakes in fleur de sel because it tastes so good, I implore you to restrain yourself as I did. The handful of bites that get the fleur de sel really make the flavors pop and I think if it was covered in salt it just wouldn't work as well.

So here is the recipe I took to girl's night out. I plan on making these again but perhaps using a crust and baking them in mini tart pans instead of the muffin tins. There are no leavening agents in this recipe so technically it couldn't be considered a cake but since I didn't use a crust I didn't feel comfortable calling them pies. Ah well, technicalities! Also I noticed that the caramel got a little too hard after these cooled, next time I will make my own caramel sauce so it stays gooey!

This is a great recipe because almost everything you need is already in your pantry!

Sunken Chocolate Caramel Cakes with Fleur de Sel

Prep time: 8 minutes
Cooking time: 15-20 minutes

2 sticks butter
2 c. sugar
1 c. all-purpose flour sifted
8 heaping Tbsp. cocoa
2 dashes salt
4 eggs beaten
2 tsp. vanilla or almond extract
12 caramels unwrapped
fleur de sel to taste

Preheat oven to 325 F. Melt margarine and cocoa together in microwave (about 1 min). Add sugar and remaining ingredients except for caramels. Beat with hand mixer until combined.

Pour batter into cupcake liners half way. Place one caramel on top of the batter for each cupcake. Add remaining batter to the top of the cupcake liner. These won't rise very much so the amount you put in each cupcake liner is roughly the size of the cupcake you will get.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until batter is set and the tops are beginning to crack like brownies. Once done, sprinkle fleur de sel on cupcakes before they have a chance to cool. You can press the crystals onto the tops of the cakes so they stick well.

Yields 12 cupcakes.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.

We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

This is my first daring bakers challenge and I really enjoyed it. I had trouble not changing the recipe for the Chocolate Valentino as this is similar to a flourless chocolate torte that I make often. Both recipes are incredibly simple, the daring bakers one so simple in fact that I made it in the ten minutes it took my husband to read four books to our baby.

I really became interested in chocolate this month. I checked out Theo Chocolates here in Seattle on Valentine's Day. I tried to take a tour of the factory but it was full. If I had enough money, I would have chosen Theo Chocolate's limited edition Ghost Chili dark chocolate as the base for my Chocolate Valentino. Alas, I just don't have that sort of bank roll. So I went with Ghiradelli's 72% baking chocolate, which I discovered is the perfect percentage of cacao for my tastes.

For the ice cream, I adapted the vanilla ice cream recipe to create a cardamom flavored one. It was so amazing, I think it deserves it's own separate post. It disappeared from our freezer faster than any other ice cream I've made. I think this is mostly because it has more butter fat than any other recipe I've attempted.

After trying both cakes, I have to say I prefer my flourless chocolate torte to this one. The Chef Wan recipe is a bit drier and less sweet where my torte is more moist and not 'too chocolatey'.

Here is my recipe:

Flourless Chocolate Torte with Raspberry Sauce
Original Source: Renata Foucre

Preheat oven to 325 F.

9 oz semisweet chocolate
1 c. unsalted butter, cut into pieces
5 whole eggs
½ c. superfine sugar
1 Tbs. cocoa powder
1 Tbs. superfine sugar
2 Tbs. vanilla extract

parchment paper
9 in springform pan
12 oz frozen raspberries
3 Tb. Sugar
2 tsp. lemon juice
½ pint whipping cream
1 tsp. sugar

Combine semisweet chocolate and butter in a double boiler, melt. Let cool.
Combine eggs and ½ c. sugar in mixer 1 min on high speed. Combine 1 Tbs. cocoa powder and 1 tbs sugar, add to eggs. Combine vanilla extract and melted chocolate mixture. Pour in greased, sugared parchment lined springform pan. Wrap bottom of pan in aluminum foil to prevent water from leaking in. Place pan in water bath so that water is ¾ up sides. Bake at 325 F, 45-50 min. Cool on wire rack w/ form open, then invert.

Combine raspberries, sugar, and lemon juice in blender. Push through fine sieve with spatula. Combine whipping cream and sugar, whip. Spread extra melted chocolate on granite surface (if available). Scrape chocolate into curls. Sprinkle on top of torte with a little cocoa powder. Serve topped with whipped cream and raspberry sauce.

I was inspired to start this blog by my new found love of baking. The reason I chose the name 'Tart Baby' is because those are the two things that currently occupy my life. I am staying home with my amazing six month old son while I try to become a better baker.

I decided to start small with this first post. I chose something everyone loves, brownies. Even if they don't turn out perfectly, they will still be delicious! I tend to like standard recipes with a twist and this one is no exception. These are rootbeer brownies, taken from a recipe found at www.bakingbites.com. The recipe yielded moist, flaky brownies with a subtle rootbeer flavor that becomes more pronounced the longer the brownies sit.

I would recommend using a very strong root beer, like Barq's or Buffalo Rock. The natural Hansen's soda I used didn't result in a very strong root beer flavor. This would also be fun with a ginger beer!