Pumpkin Spiced Caramels

Things I like about Halloween:

1. Costumes- not the ridiculous slutty ones but the cool ones, the ones that let you dress up as people you admire or at least admire their style. I for one, have been Audrey Hepburn many times, and you know I love Audrey Hepburn.

2. Candy, chocolate, caramel, toffee, caramel apples, chocolate covered marshmallows, nutty things. Candy and me, we go way back.

3. Pumpkins, carving pumpkins, picking pumpkins, pumpkin seeds, I love me a gourd what can I say.

Things I don’t like about Halooween:

1. Slutty costumes (I mean really, what is a slutty panda bear anyways!?).

2. Scary movies, seriously. I am scared of everything. Harry Potter, Twilight, you know the non scary movies. I am totally scared in them. This is, needless to say, a huge disapointment to my boyfriend who’s dad had them watching the Excorsist at age 7.

3. Halloween baked goods. I don’t want my cookies to look like spiders, I don’t want cakes with bloody fingers on them, and I don’t want bugs in my puddings. I just don’t.

Because of my love of Halloween one of my dearest friends in the world is coming over and we’re carving pumpkins, drinking mulled wine and joining the parade that happens on my street every year. I love my neighbourhood and the Parade of Lost Souls (which, before it started happening and we just saw signs we thought was an anti-abortion march. Not the case.) And because of my hatred of all things that look Halloween-y but my love of both pumpkins and candy, here is a wonderful recipe for Pumpkin Spiced Caramels, not nearly as hard as it might look, although you do need a candy thermometer. You also need friends because this makes about 100, and I have tried to get through them, and well, that’s what friends are for. Candy eating, wine drinking, and parade going right?

*Update: I recently made Gingerbread Caramels, and with that recipe wrote a bunch about the does and don’t of caramel making! You can get that information HERE if you so wish. 

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Wunderbar Tart

While I am not a big fan of my birthdays, nearly ever, I get borderline obsessed with other peoples. I will always go overboard.

I love giving presents, I love cards (seriously, I can spend days this shop) and, not surprising to any of you I’d guess, I love making cakes. A lot.

So you can imagine that there is a serious amount of planning in making Jordan’s birthday cake.

I deliberate over flavours-it has to be chocolate, but chocolate hazelnut? Chocolate caramel? Chocolate pumpkin?

And textures, are we wanting dense and rich? Or light and whipped? Maybe with a crunchy layer somewhere, perhaps a praline?

Basically, I go on like this for a long time. I write notes, then I doodle pictures of what I want it to look like. I check online for inspiration, then later then I should, I make something and barely get it done in time, if I’m being honest here.

This year it wasn’t a cake per say, it was a mousse tart, a chocolate base, a thick layer of creamy caramel, a whipped mousse of peanut butter just firm enough to hold it’s shape when sliced, and topped with a layer of chocolate ganache gently sprinkled with maldon salt.

It’s an extremely grown up version of a Wunderbar, which just so happens to be Jordans favourite.

It’s also happens to be extremely good.

Wunderbar Tart/Peanut butter, Caramel Chocolate Tart

Adapted from this recipe

Crust

16 oz Chocolate wafers, or Oreo Crumbs

8tbsp Butter, melted

Caramel

1 cup Sugar

3/4 cup Whipping Cream

4 tbsp Butter

1 tbsp Vanilla Extract

Peanut Butter Mousse

1 cup Peanut Butter

3/4 cup Whipping Cream

4 tbsp Sugar

1 tbsp Vanilla Extract

Chocolate Mousse

8oz Chocolate

1/2 cup Cream

1tsp Salt-because I’m the sort of person who keeps vanilla salt around I used that and it was wonderful, but regular fleur de sel or maldon salt it lovely. Just make sure it’s a flaked salt not a chunked salt.

Caramel:

*Make sure you have everything you need for this measure out as caramel can go from light brown to black within seconds. Also, use an extremely clean pot.

Put sugar in pot with just enough cold water to give it the texture of wet sand.

On medium heat cook this mixture stirring occasionally until sugar dissolves.

Take out spoon and bring heat up to high. Shake pot occasionally and watch it carefully.

When it turns amber color immediately pour in the cream. It will bubble up and splatter so be careful!

Add in the butter and vanilla. Allow to cool completely.

Make Crust:

Preheat oven to 350F

Mix butter and crumbs together

Press into a 10inch spring form pan, or a pan with a removable bottom, or 10 small tart shells

Bake until the crust just begins to firm, about 10 minutes. Cool completely.

Make Mousse:

Bring a couple cups of water to a boil.

Slowly add the water a few tablespoons at a time to the peanut butter stirring well until it is smooth, easy to stir and forms slowly dissolving ribbons when you pick up a spoon and let the mixture fall back in. It took more water then I thought it would, don’t be alarmed!

Let cool.

Meanwhile whip the cream and sugar to stiff peaks.

Once the peanut mixture is cooled fold in the whip cream and the vanilla.

Make Ganache:

Bring cream to a boil

Pour over the chocolate and stir until it is smooth.

Assemble:

Pour the caramel into the cooled tart shell. Let it set in the fridge for at least 10 minutes.

Pour the mousse over the caramel and smooth with an offset spatula.

Pour the chocolate over the mousse and smooth.

Sprinkle with the salt.

If I Only Had A Fireplace…

A few years ago I threw my back out very badly. There were torn ligaments and much pain and I was forced to take several months off work. I couldn’t stand for more then an hour or so at a time so it was hard to much of anything. Except bake. Did you know you can bake almost anything and then sit down for a while. Baking is by nature the art of patience, you have to wait for things to bake, to cool, to rest. Baking is made for people with bad backs (this is only true of at home baking, professional baking requires lifting 20kilo bags of flour, kneading enormous pieces of dough, and standing on your feet for at least 12 hours a day.) So I baked. I baked and I baked and I baked. Christmas fell in that time period and I made every single thing from the Martha Stewart Christmas magazine. Every single thing. There were some hits, like her shortbreads, some misses, like the pomegranate jelly, but most things have faded into the recesses of my brain along with the other million things I’ve baked. The one thing I remember most accurately are the marshmallows.

If you’ve never made your own marshmallows before you might not know that they have a delicious flavour.

You might not know that they are lighter and less chewy then store bought ones.

You might not know of the amazing flavours you can give them.

You might not know a lot of things that you probably should know. So you should probably make them promptly.

I have played around with my marshmallow recipe lately and so I am giving you the basic recipe which you can make but I have been caramelizing the sugar first so that it hints of the roasted marshmallows, and I have been putting salt on them because I’m trendy like that. If your wondering what the black stuff is on top of the marshmallows it’s vanilla salt because I am compelled to buy things like 17 dollar salt. But regular old salt is more then fine, and you’ll be $17 the richer. Which is a plus. I do wish I had your self control.

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