Caramel Stroopwafels

Tuesday night tv is a bit of a treat at the moment isn't it, starting off with Bake Off, followed by Dr Foster. This week was even more of a treat for me as the husband was away so I had the remote control to myself, with no risk of popping out to make a cuppa during an ad break and coming back to football, or any other random sport, on the screen.

What a night bake off was, starting off with some delicious caramel shortbreads, followed by a few grainy stroopwafels in the middle, and ending up with some epic (and one not so epic) caramel cakes.

A few days ago I thought about attempting to make waffle wafers or cones this week in my waffle maker, so when I saw the stroopwafels on Bake Off I knew that I had to make them, it was fate. I must admit that I was a bit hesitant after watching all the bakers fail with their caramel fillings, with not one of them having the right consistency, although the making of the actual biscuit didn't look too complicated. I've eaten stroopwafels a few times as they seem to be readily available in coffee shops, as well as supermarkets and trendy Scandinavian shops. The way to enjoy them is to pop one on top of your warm coffee to soften the caramel, and allow the caramel and cinnamon flavours to come out.

As the dough has yeast in I was kind of expecting it to be like bread dough, but it was more like a cookie dough - whether that was right or not I don't know, but it worked. My waffle maker is only a cheap one bought from Lidl a few months ago, and for the stroopwafels to be as thin as they should be the waffle maker really needs to be shallower, which meant mine were a little on the chunky side.

Apart from burning my fingertips slicing the stroopwafels open, the whole process was pretty painless, relatively quick, and a lot less messy than I'd anticipated. I decided to make the caramel in the microwave to avoid burning a pan, which seemed to work really well and resulted in a lovely smooth caramel. The recipe I used called for treacle, but as I didn't have any, following a recent store cupboard clear out, I instead used maple flavour golden syrup.

Apart from looking a little rustic, I was extremely pleased with how these turned out. They had just the right amount of crispness, and the caramel was just the right amount of sticky. I know I should've cut a perfect round with a cutter, but I decided not to as the shape wasn't too far off round anyway.

If I was to see these in a coffee shop wrapped in cellophane and tied up with string, I would definitely be tempted to buy some, and I'll definitely be making these again, especially the 'wafel' part, which would be great served with ice cream.

Caramel Apple Trifle

Since returning from holiday I've been frantically trying to catch up with everything and today I managed to get around to making something for week 3 of the Great Bloggers Bake Off. We have a tree full of apples in our garden that are starting to fall so we got picking a few to use in a trifle.

I have no idea what variety they are but I know they're eating apples and they can be a little sharp and make great pies as they hold their shape when cooked.

I've never made a trifle with apples before but thought that combined with caramel it would make a nice change to my usual chocolate orange trifle that uses ready made swiss roll and instant custard. After watching GBBO last night I knew that I needed to up my game for the challenge and ready made custard and sponge fingers wasn't going to cut it with the judges (obviously because I'm one of the judges it doesn't really matter as I can't actually enter the challenge but need to show willing you see).

I found a recipe for sponge fingers here and they were really simple to make. They were quite flat once baked which may have been due to rushing and not beating the egg yolks enough - but once they were in the trifle they worked really well and weren't dry or too cakey at all.

I used a no cornflour recipe for the custard from my new Mrs Beeton cookbook which has recipes for both 'everyday' custard using cornflour and milk or 'special' custard with double cream and no cornflour.

My layers weren't too well defined but I blame the shape of the bowl rather than the slackness of my custard - it was thicker than some of the custard offerings on GBBO and I can honestly say that the custard was all mine and definitely not Howard's.

The tartness of the apples worked really well with the sweet custard and the addition of the cinnamon made it taste very apple pie like. Everyone loved the custard and it tasted just like real dairy ice cream so I may have to be making more of it to churn in the ice cream maker. The only problem was the height of the bowl meaning that it wouldn't fit into the fridge and all had to be eaten...such a shame!

Caramel Apple Trifle
printable recipe

Apple layer

Approx 250ml Caramel sauce - I used a recipe found here (reserve 50ml for the cream)

600g Apples, peeled & cored & cut into wedges (& placed in cold water with a squeeze of lemon)

2 tbsp Maple Syrup

1 tsp Cinnamon

Custard

300ml Double Cream

50g Caster sugar

1 vanilla pod

5 Egg yolks

Sponge fingers

300ml Double Cream

• Drain the apples and place in a shallow pan with approx 1/3 of the caramel sauce and cinnamon
• Bring the sauce up the the boil, place a lid on and simmer for approx 15 minutes until the apples are tender but still holding their shape
• Stir in the Maple syrup and remaining caramel sauce, stir and allow to cool fully

• Make the custard by adding half of the sugar and vanilla pod to the cream
• Bring to the boil, remove from heat and leave to infuse whilst preparing the egg yolks
• Beat the egg yolks with the remaining sugar in a glass bowl until thick and creamy
• Bring a small pan  half filled with water to the boil
• Remove the Vanilla pod from the cream & split it and add the seeds to the cream (you can wash & dry the pod afterwards and add to a jar of caster sugar to infuse with the vanilla flavour)
• Put the cream back on the heat and bring to the boil
• As soon as the cream comes to the boil whisk it into the egg yolks and place the bowl over the pan of boiling water (making sure that the water does not touch the bowl)
• Keep whisking until the custard thickens - it may take a while but heating too quickly may cause the custard to curdle
• Cool the custard completely 
• Whisk the remaining cream with a hand whisk until just thickened
• Stir in the reserved caramel sauce and beat again
• Now to start layering up as you want, I went with 2 layers of sponge, apple and custard but you could just have 1 layer of each if using a wider bowl, ending with the caramel cream on top and a sprinkling on cinnamon 

if you fancy giving the Great Bloggers Bake Off a go you can read more about it by clicking the badge below or on Jenny's blog. If you join in with a minimum of 6 of the challenges you could be in with a chance of winning some great prizes at the end.

Banoffee Bread & Butter Pudding

If you've got bananas that need eating up then I urge you to make this, it's so much better than banana bread, but it doesn't stick around for long. I made it with wholemeal sliced bread as that's what we have and the crusts needed using up,  but you can  use white bread, brioche or even croissants.

Banoffee Bread & Butter Pudding

6 wholemeal crust slices
50g butter
150ml Double cream
3 Eggs
150ml semi skimmed milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp cinnamon 
100ml caramel sauce - I used home-made, however Carnation caramel or similar would work well
3 Bananas, sliced
2 tbsp Demerara sugar

• Butter the bread and then cut each slice into quarters
• Beat the cream with the eggs, milk, vanilla, 1 tsp of cinnamon & caramel sauce
• Butter a medium shallow baking dish
• Lay half of the bread sliced in the bottom
• Sprinkle 1/2 tsp of cinnamon over the bread
• Lay half of the banana slices over the bread
• Repeat with the remaining bread, cinnamon & banana
• Pour the liquid over the bread & banana and press down gently with the back of a fork
• Cover & leave for 30 minutes for the liquid to soak into the bread
• Sprinkle the demerara sugar over the top
• Bake in a preheated 160 C oven for 30-35 minutes, until puffed up and golden

Serve with extra sauce and ice cream

Home-made Salted Caramel Sauce

With it being pancake day tomorrow you might be looking for something tasty to top your pancakes with, whether you make American Style pancakes or the more traditional crepe style. Here is a simple caramel sauce that goes particularly well with bananas. You can add more or less salt according to your taste - I was making this for my children so only added a pinch.

It can be made ahead and stored in an airtight container in the fridge.

Salted Caramel Sauce

425g Caster Sugar
100ml Water
25g Butter
284ml Double Cream
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Pinch of Sea Salt

• Add the sugar and water to a pan over a medium heat
• Dissolve the sugar in the water and bring to a gentle simmer
• Simmer until the sugar mixture has turned a light caramel colour *
• Remove from the heat, stir in the butter until melted
• Stir in the cream, vanilla and salt until combined

The sauce thickens once cooled completely.


* be patient and don't be tempted to boil rapidly or you may end up with a pan of crystals *cough*, apparently. If you do then remove from the heat and add a small amount of water and start again.

Chocolate Banoffee Celebration Cake

Twelve years ago today I became a Mum for the first time. Over those very fast twelve years my baby boy has gone from this

to this.

A birthday wouldn't be a birthday without a cake so today I've been making one for Sam, he specifically asked for caramel crunch chocolate fingers and no vegetables! Here's what I made

Chocolate Banoffee Celebration Cake

3 small bananas, mashed (approx 250g)
150g butter, softened
225g soft brown sugar
4 eggs
225g Self Raising flour
40g Cocoa powder
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

• Beat the banana, butter & sugar together
• Add the eggs, one at a time with a little of the flour with each egg
• Sift in the remaining flour with the cocoa powder & bicarbonate of soda
• Divide mixture between two 8" sandwich tins & bake in a 180 C oven for approx 25 minutes
• Remove from tins & cool on a wire rack

Filling, Topping & Decoration

100g Toffees
1 tbsp boiling water
400g Full Fat Cream cheese
220g Dark chocolate spread
1 small banana, thinly sliced
3 boxes of Cadbury's Caramel Crunch chocolate fingers
8 Cadbury's Caramel miniatures

• Melt the toffees & water in a glass bowl over a pan of boiling water
• When melted, beat until smooth & remove from the heat
• Beat in the 100g of the cream cheese & set aside
• Beat the remaining cream cheese with the chocolate spread
• Spread half of the caramel over the base of one of the cooled sponges & lay slices of banana on top
• Spread the other half of the caramel over the base of the other sponge and sandwich them together
• Cover completely with the chocolate topping & arrange fingers around the sides
• Decorate with the remaining fingers and halved chocolate caramels

(I've just double checked & I definitely put 12 candles on the cake...one of them must have been hiding!)