April 05, 2007

The Bunny Returns with Good News

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The bunny’s back and it’s not even Easter yet. This wily little rabbit is at it again, baking cake and spreading Easter cheer. This time he’s even filled the cake with spring time jelly beans, what a good bunny! Why has he come early? Because Julia of A Slice of Cherry Pie is hosting her first event, an Easter Cake Bake. Well, you know the bunny loves a good cake bake as much as the next person, so he was eager to join in, or maybe it was me who was eager, no matter. I wanted to submit my monkey cake, just cause it was cool, but I couldn’t quite figure out how monkeys tied into Easter. I tried to think of a link, but the best I could come up with was: monkeys like bananas, bananas are yellow, yellow is a bright colour, bright colours are associated with spring, spring is when Easter is… Uh, right. No dice.


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But as luck would have it, one of the women who had a piece of the monkey cake liked it so much that she asked me to make her the exact same cake, except in the shape of an Easter egg nest with jelly beans in the middle. Short of making a bunny cake, you can’t get much more Easter than that. Hurrah, problem solved, sort of. She wanted the flavours to be exactly the same cake as the monkey cake, (banana cake with peanut butter cream cheese icing) but if you’ll recall, the middle of that cake was filled with a layer of caramel that was leftover from my failed attempt at making salted butter chocolate caramels. This twist in the plot meant that I would have to recreate failure. Failing on purpose is not a concept I’m familiar with. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had a brand new candy thermometer and was itching to try the caramels again, the proper way, cooking them all the way to 245F. But if I did things the way I wanted to, the caramel would be much too thick to layer in the cake. It seemed like I was doomed either way. Or was I? I like to have my cake and eat it too. I undercooked half of my caramel, then poured it into a pan that I had divided in two with parchment paper, then returned the pan to the stove to allow the rest of the caramel to reach the full temperature. Could it really be this easy? Yes, yes it could.


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Ladies and gentlemen, I have conquered caramel! I will no longer live in fear of hot sugar. My dreams won’t be haunted by the ghosts of caramels that could have been. If a recipe calls for caramel, I will make it with gusto! I think this calls for a song…



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28 comments:

K and S said...

this is cute! Happy Easter!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Recreate failure...is a huge success! That is marvelous. Great cake.

Gattina Cheung said...

Perfect caramel!! And gorgeous cake!!!
And great song, hot costume...

Lydia (The Perfect Pantry) said...

This cake is a thing of beauty, and nobody ever has to know that your ingenious caramel filling began life as a failure!

Anonymous said...

The caramels looks delicious!

And Freddie Mercury's outfit just made my day.

Cheryl said...

Your cake is so cute. And that caramel looks so good. I have to stop grabbing the screen.

Jenny said...

LOL! Yes, you are the champion!
Nice looking caramel! Well done!

Anonymous said...

Waou!! your cake and your caramel it's very beautiful. It's rabbit it's enchanting
Candy

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the caramel! The cake looks so festive, too!

Anonymous said...

Very cute Easter cake...and Congrats on mastering the caramel!

Anonymous said...

Adorable cake and congrats on the luscious looking caramel, looks perfect to me!

Susan from Food Blogga said...

You have captured the sweetness of Easter in this adorable photos!

Anonymous said...

wow, that´s one good looking cake! And congratulations on the candy thermometer, that caramel looks delicious.

Anonymous said...

whats the multi colored confettii type stuff on the top of the cake?

Anonymous said...

i love your cake and i got a chuckle regarding your monkey cake. that'd be fun if we have monkey cake for easter though, right?
and your caramel looks perfect! happy easter to you!

emily said...

Congratulations on your caramel-conquering! That's a domain I'm still fearful of . . . but your success (and failures!) give me hope.

Elle said...

COngrats on your beautiful, perfect caramel. ANd turning a monkey into a bunny, sort of, is a great magic trick worthy of springtimea time of great, magical changes.

Anonymous said...

Love your cake, jelly beans and the bunny!

Paz

Anonymous said...

P.S. I love your caramel, too! Looks perfectly delicious!

Paz

Helene said...

You just crack me up! I almost choke on my ice cream...That screems sugar goodness to me. Bravo on the caramels, but I had no fear that you would do great.
How did you know I love that band? (and that's a samll word)

Unknown said...

Congrats on your conquering of caramel!

Alice Q. Foodie said...

Perfect caramel? Congratulations! and please do tell - how did you do it??

Anonymous said...

Woohoo! Congratulations on conquering the boiled sugar fear - that caramel looks perfect! As for that adorable cake...*ahem* care to make another one for me? :D

Julia said...

That is so cute!! Thank you so much for entering!

Peabody said...

That cake screams Easter! Hope you have a good one.

Patricia Scarpin said...

You can do it all, Brilynn! :)

Not caramel could ever stop you. :D

Anonymous said...

Conquring caramel is one of the things I plan on doing in the next week or so. Yummy!
Love your cake...so springy!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations! Your caramel is beautiful! And thanks for the song...I enjoyed it while reading through your latest posts!