I am finally over salted caramel.
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
For Vayle’s fifth birthday, I set out on my most ambitious cake yet. Full sheet size cake pan, check. Four dozen eggs, check. Three pounds of butter, check. A quart of cream, check. You get the picture.
I decided to experiment with my caramel recipe, I have this lavender grey sea salt that is lovely in my shortbread. Somehow I got my measurements wrong and ended up with some really salty caramel. I kept tasting, and wondering if it was me or the caramel, with all the aforementioned butter and cream, I really wanted it to be delicious. In order to figure it out, I opened the perfect thing that goes with salty, a sparkling brut. The only thing we had on hand was the Scharffenberger a really good value, at Wines and Makers for $20, but I have seen it elsewhere for $15-16.
The match saved the caramel, but unfortunately it deceived me into thinking a really salty caramel would be good on a five year old’s birthday cake. There was a lot of birthday cake left on the table, I guess this is a good thing as any of you parents out there know.
Lesson learned. Next year, I promise to keep my adult tastes out of my daughters birthday cake and make something that gets entirely eaten up and all the kids will remember, Vayle’s mom makes the best birthday cake ever!








