Tuesday's With Dorie Caramel-Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake!

So I did it, I made my first Tuesday's With Dorie recipe with all the other baker's in the group.  This was quite the cake!  I thought it was going to be more brownie like, but mine was a really dense chocolatey cake.  It was good and I loved the caramel and peanuts on top.  It would be fun to try other nuts, too.  Who is Dorie Greenspan?  Well, you should know she is an amazing baker and cook book author and I highly recommend her book, Baking From My Home to Yours.  This book has some GREAT recipes in it!

I baked up the cake without incident.  It did just as Dorie suggested it might, rose up high in the oven and while cooling, sank a little in the center.  Good thing she put that in the recipe, or I might have thought I'd done something wrong.

On to the caramel!  I was actually not real thrilled with the idea of making homemade caramel, it has just always seems hard, I guess.  But I'm doing this weekly baking group to expand my skills, so here I go, or there I went.  The recipes says to put the sugar, some water and corn syrup in a pot on the stove and do not stir it for ten minutes.  I did that, then you're supposed to check for a dark amber color to the sugar and that is how you decide when it is ready for the next step.  So, after the ten minutes, my sugar had just barely started getting any color.  I had noticed other baker's who were mentioning theirs took more like 15-20 minutes.  I set the timer for 2 minutes, but fully intended to keep an eye on it.  Well, that was when my son, Parker decided he really wanted to show me that he can tie his shoes-finally.  So I stepped in to the living room to watch him.  During the tying, I started smell that smell, you know, that smell that you never want to smell in the kitchen--something burning!  I jumped up and ran in to see my caramel went from barely any color to, well, hmmm, let's say a deep, dark auburn--burn being the key word there, within about one minute!

DARN!

Well, I'm not up for failure, so I got a new pot and started again.  This time letting the kids know I could not be "bugged" for a matter of time.  I stayed with the caramel and got through the ten minutes of watching the sugar boil and not touching it.  Sure enough right at about 11 minutes, it was perfectly dark amber.  I quickly removed it from the heat, added some cream and butter and was much more delighted than 15 minutes prior to that!

Onto the peanuts.  I found these peanuts at the store, haven't seen them before and was excited to try them.  It says they are extra crunchy and THEY ARE!  I like them.  (There is no added sugar.) 

The family oohed and ahhed as I brought it to the table, just as Dorie said they should/would.  It wasn't until slicing it and serving it and of course, tasting it that we realized it was more cake-like than brownie-like, but I was delicious!  I ate a few too many bites of it, considering my "diet", but I love the caramel-peanuts!  I really only ate a tiny sliver of a piece, but kept picking at the peanuts.  (Now they had added sugar!) ;)  Some in the family liked it, some didn't like a few of my little boys who just don't have very "sophisticated" taste at their young age.  I took four big slices to the neighbors and I'm sure I'll be hearing raves about it from them. 

Want some?  Get Dorie's book and make this cake!  You won't be sorry! ;)

Thanks to Tammy of wee treats by tammy for this week's TWD pick!  You can find the recipe on Tammy's blog.