November’s Daring Bakers’ challenge hosted by a whole slew of fantastic bakers – Dolores from Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity, Alex from Blonde and Brownie, and Jenny from Foray into Food. The challenge at hand? Shuna Fish Lydon’s Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting.

When I first read this was to be the challenge, I was so excited that I actually didn’t wait to the last minute to bake it. First of all, I was happy that the group had gone back to the sweet route. I like savoury stuff as much as the next person, but sugar is where the heart is. Secondly, caramel is pretty much my favourite thing ever (I guess to be expected, given my inclination towards sugar!).

The recipe looks long and complicated, but it’s actually a pretty easy cake to make. My only “trouble” came with the creation of the caramel syrup, but even that was pretty easy – I got it the perfect flavour and consistency my first shot. Be warned though! That addition of cold water to the hot sugar makes quite the hiss, splatter and noise (my cat pretty much jumped to the ceiling).

I didn’t have a cake pan with high enough sides, so I decided to use a mini-bundt pan, and the recipe was the perfect amount for 6 little bundt cakes. The frosting recipe, however, yielded waaay too much (not that I’m complaining, I have it sitting in my freezer, waiting for a rainy, sugar-deprived day). Same with the caramel syrup….you’re left with a lot, but it’s great on ice cream, so no loss there.

As for the taste? Well, my cakes weren’t as light and fluffy as I expected, but a little dense. Not that I minded, I really enjoyed the texture. Of course it has a sweet, caramel-y taste, but not overpowering in the least.

However, the frosting is quite rich in its caramel flavours, as is the syrup. If you don’t love caramel and super-sweetness, perhaps you won’t be fond of this. I, on the other hand, loved it.

All in all, I really enjoyed making the caramel syrup, and seeing it used in all aspects of the cake. I couldn’t imagine eating more than one or two slices of this thing though, so best you save it for when company’s coming!

Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting
adapted from Shuna Fish Lydon’s signature cake

CARAMEL CAKE
10 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/4 Cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 Cup Caramel Syrup (see recipe below)
2 each eggs, at room temperature
splash vanilla extract
2 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk, at room temperature

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Butter one tall (2 – 2.5 inch deep) 9-inch cake pan.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and salt & cream until light and fluffy.

3. Slowly pour room temperature caramel syrup into bowl. Scrape down bowl and increase speed. Add eggs/vanilla extract a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform.

4. Sift flour and baking powder.

5. Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add half of the milk, a little at a time. Add another third of the dry ingredients, then the other half of the milk and finish with the dry ingredients. {This is called the dry, wet, dry, wet, dry method in cake making. It is often employed when there is a high proportion of liquid in the batter.}

6. Take off mixer and by hand, use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure batter is uniform. Turn batter into prepared cake pan.

7. Place cake pan on cookie sheet or 1/2 sheet pan. Set first timer for 30 minutes, rotate pan and set timer for another 15-20 minutes. Your own oven will set the pace. Bake until sides pull away from the pan and skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool cake completely before icing it.

Cake will keep for three days outside of the refrigerator.

CARAMEL SYRUP
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup water (for “stopping” the caramelization process)

1. In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber.

2. When color is achieved, very carefully pour in one cup of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back.

3. Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.}

Note: For safety reasons, have ready a bowl of ice water to plunge your hands into if any caramel should land on your skin.

CARAMELIZED BUTTER FROSTING
12 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound confectioner’s sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-4 tablespoons caramel syrup
Kosher or sea salt to taste

1. Cook butter until brown. Pour through a fine meshed sieve into a heatproof bowl, set aside to cool.

2. Pour cooled brown butter into mixer bowl.

3. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, add confectioner’s sugar a little at a time. When mixture looks too chunky to take any more, add a bit of cream and or caramel syrup. Repeat until mixture looks smooth and all confectioner’s sugar has been incorporated. Add salt to taste.

Note: Caramelized butter frosting will keep in fridge for up to a month.
To smooth out from cold, microwave a bit, then mix with paddle attachment until smooth and light

This is a quick and easy meal – not to mention cheap (probably under $10), tasty and healthy. Oh, and now that the chill of winter is here, it’s a perfect hearty, warm-you-up kind of meal.

Not to mention it’s vegetarian (and easily made vegan, with one minor adjustment.)

The “mediterranean” flavour comes from the addition of pesto, though that flavour doesn’t stand out as the primary one (though it adds a fantastic dynamism). The lack of meat in here is appreciated – that fatty, oily feel of the sauce is gone, but it’s still thick and chunky enough to call it a stew. I laughed at this expression once, but now I understand it – this tastes “healthy,” and in a delightful way.

I added some extra pesto to the sauce, as well as some chili flakes, because I like things with a little bit of heat. Served with some nice hunks of crusty bread, and this becomes the weeknight winter meal of champions!

Mediterranean-Style Vegetable Stew
Adapted from a recipe found in the Montreal Gazette
Serves 6 (if you like small portions, that is – I would say it serves 4)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium green pepper, diced
1 or 2 garlic cloves, chopped (I used 3 cloves)
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups vegetable stock
1 19-oz can white kidney beans, drained and rinsed (I used red kidney beans)
1 14-oz can diced tomatoes
2 medium white-skinned potatoes, cubed
1 small zucchini, halved lengthwise and thickly sliced
2 tablespoons homemade or store-bought pesto
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
salt, freshly ground black pepper to taste (I also added chili flakes)

1. Heat oil in large pot over medium heat. Add the onion, bell pepper and garlic and cook three to four minutes.

2. Mix in flour and cook two to three minutes more.

3. Slowly, stirring constantly, mix in the stock.

4. Mix in the remaining ingredients and simmer the stew on the stovetop, uncovered, 15 to 20 minutes (mine took about 40 minutes at a stovetop setting of 4), or until the vegetables are tender. Adjust seasoning and serve.

These cookies are great. Enough said?

No, I guess not. What can I say to convince you to make these? They are like little brownie bites – moist, super chocolately centres with a light crisp on the surface. They’re very rich, sweet, and the perfect (Christmas) cookie. The icing sugar on the outside adds extra sweetness, as well as giving the cookies a nice “snowy” appearance, as well as accentuating the crackles in the cookie.

I’ve seen lots  of recipes for this cookie, and I can’t claim this one is the best, seeing as I haven’t made all the versions of it. However, I know I love these…and given they’re so easy to make (and wonderful to eat!), they’re in my regular rotation of cookies.

Chocolate Crackle Cookies
adapted from Debbie Mum’s Old-Fashioned Cookies
makes approx. 4 dozen cookies

1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 egg
2 egg whites
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place sheets of foil on countertop for cooling cookies.

2. Combine oil, granulated sugar and vanilla in large bowl. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until blended. Add egg and egg whites. Beat until well blended. (I once added some chopped dark chocolate – I recommend it!)

3. Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Add to sugar mixture and mix together with a spoon.

4. Place confectioners’ sugar in a shallow dish or large plastic storage bag.

5. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll or shake in confectioners’ sugar until coated. Place about 2 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet.

6. Bake at 350 degrees F for 7 to 8 minutes or until almost no indentation remains when touched lightly. (Do not overbake.) Cool on baking sheet 2 minutes. Remove cookies to foil to cool completely.

We’ve now had the opportunity to experience two of the Kanda sushi restaurants in Montreal, and after this second experience, I know we are never going back (you can read about the first experience here). Not because the food is bad – the sushi is actually pretty good, given it’s an all-you-can-eat sushi place – but the way we were treated that night was embarrassingly bad, and I think the reason why is just because it’s an all-you-can-eat sushi place.

Now, Kanda charges you $1 for any piece of sushi you order that you do not eat. That’s fine with me; otherwise, people would be wasting copious amounts of food. However, if you read my first review of Kanda (the one at 2045 Bishop), you know I was already suspicious of their sneaky ways. Our first order of sushi brought us, for example, about 4 pieces. We liked it, so ordered it again – however, this being the second round, and we’re obviously getting full, the same exact order suddenly yielded eight pieces. Makes you go hmmmm, no?

But that could’ve been an accident, right? No, apparently not. The Kanda on St-Catherine street, are not as subtle, and proved the blatant trickery they are attempting.

I really wished I had taken a photo of this, because it was such a desperate grab for our money that it was pathetically humorous. It wasn’t as though an extra piece or two of sushi slipped onto our plate come the second round – oh no. We order for the second time (so yes, we’ve eaten a ton of rice and fish already), and out comes this platter with about 18 pieces of tuna sashimi on it.

Okay, we know how to order sushi. We know to not order 18 pieces of the same thing on the second round of eating. And if we were going to order 18 pieces of the same thing, it would not be mediocre tuna! Soli called our server over, asked to see our menu, where the tuna order was now a big scratchout, with no clear number. Nice try. Soli told the server, you’re not charging us for this. The server humbly agreed.

When it comes time to pay, we’re told they don’t take Interac. No problem, there’s an ATM two feet away from the cash register. I forget the exact amounts, but let’s say the bill was $57, and (for some bizarre reason) I felt the need to give a $10 tip. I go to take $80 from the machine…I then take the one step from the machine back to the cash register, my $80 still in hand because a ¾ second step doesn’t necessitate you putting your money in your pocket just to pull it back out, and give it to her. I tell her, just give me $13 back. She tells me, you only gave $60. I look at the two feet of space, look back at her. We say no. And you know it’s no. Because you know you’re lying and you didn’t get the $1/sushi from us and you’ll get it any way you can, won’t you?

But, this is a food blog. So how was the food? Good enough that I would’ve gone back, if they hadn’t treated us like imbeciles.

Kanda Sushi
537, rue Sainte-Catherine O

As some people may know, I used to write for the Montreal arts & culture website, Midnight Poutine. I have decided, for a variety of reasons, to stop writing for the site (though I still love and support the site – go read it!). I used to do mostly food and restaurant reviews…even though I’ve stopped writing for the site, it doesn’t mean I’ve stopped eating at Montreal restaurants.

Therefore, from here on in, montcarte will be focusing on more than just the cooking and baking Soli and I do at home, but also on the cooking we are (un)fortunate to eat around this wonderful city. We’ll also be including Montreal restaurant reviews on this site, which is a good thing, given the amount of fantastic food we have in this city.

So stay tuned…I’ve got a customer service story from hell coming your way…

I’m a little bit late with this month’s Daring Baker’s challenge, but better late than never!

This month’s challenge was pizza dough, chosen by Rosa from Rosa’s Yummy Yums, and I was really excited when I heard about it. In case it isn’t obvious by the several pizza posts on this site, we like pizza, and up until now, have been purchasing premade dough (with one failed attempt at making our own dough).

I made this dough with whole wheat bread flour, and it turned out well! I rolled it out pretty thin, so the end result was crispy, but with a nice doughiness in the middle. Making the dough itself was really easy, even though I had to add way more water than the recipe recommended. Perhaps it was because it was whole wheat flour?

Because of a lack of time, I was pretty simple with my pizza topping. Soli had made a some pizza sauce a few days before (couldn’t tell you what he stuck in there!), so I used that, and made the usual cheese pizza, with healthy blend of mozzarella and cheddar. On half the pie, I also used some veggie salami slices (which I wouldn’t use again, as they were far too strong-tasting).

This dough recipe is easy, fast, and cheap – I can’t wait to make it again, and I’ll always be sure to have a few balls of this dough in my freezer for pizza nights (and get a bit more creative with my sauces and toppings!)

Basic Pizza Dough
Original recipe taken from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart.
Makes 6 pizza crusts (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter).

4 1/2 Cups (20 1/4 ounces/607.5 g) Unbleached high-gluten (%14) bread flour or all purpose flour, chilled
1 3/4 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Instant yeast
1/4 Cup (2 ounces/60g) Olive oil or vegetable oil (both optional, but it’s better with)
1 3/4 Cups (14 ounces/420g or 420ml) Water, ice cold (40° F/4.5° C)
1 Tb sugar – FOR GF use agave syrup
Semolina/durum flour or cornmeal for dusting

DAY ONE

1. Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a big bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer).

2. Add the oil, sugar and cold water and mix well (with the help of a large wooden spoon or with the paddle attachment, on low speed) in order to form a sticky ball of dough. On a clean surface, knead for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are homogeneously distributed. If it is too wet, add a little flour (not too much, though) and if it is too dry add 1 or 2 teaspoons extra water.

NOTE: If you are using an electric mixer, switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for the same amount of time.The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet, sprinkle in a little more flour, so that it clears the sides. If, on the contrary, it clears the bottom of the bowl, dribble in a teaspoon or two of cold water.
The finished dough should be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50°-55° F/10°-13° C.

3. Flour a work surface or counter. Line a jelly pan with baking paper/parchment. Lightly oil the paper.

4. With the help of a metal or plastic dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 equal pieces (or larger if you want to make larger pizzas).

NOTE: To avoid the dough from sticking to the scraper, dip the scraper into water between cuts.

5. Sprinkle some flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Gently round each piece into a ball.

NOTE: If the dough sticks to your hands, then dip your hands into the flour again.

6. Transfer the dough balls to the lined jelly pan and mist them generously with spray oil. Slip the pan into plastic bag or enclose in plastic food wrap.

7. Put the pan into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to thee days.

NOTE: You can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag if you want to save some of the dough for any future baking. In that case, pour some oil (a few tablespooons only) in a medium bowl and dip each dough ball into the oil, so that it is completely covered in oil. Then put each ball into a separate bag. Store the bags in the freezer for no longer than 3 months. The day before you plan to make pizza, remember to transfer the dough balls from the freezer to the refrigerator.

DAY TWO

8. On the day you plan to eat pizza, exactly 2 hours before you make it, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator. Dust the counter with flour and spray lightly with oil. Place the dough balls on a floured surface and sprinkle them with flour. Dust your hands with flour and delicately press the dough into disks about 1/2 inch/1.3 cm thick and 5 inches/12.7 cm in diameter. Sprinkle with flour and mist with oil. Loosely cover the dough rounds with plastic wrap and then allow to rest for 2 hours.

9. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500° F/260° C).

NOTE: If you do not have a baking stone, then use the back of a jelly pan. Do not preheat the pan.

10. Generously sprinkle the back of a jelly pan with semolina/durum flour or cornmeal. Flour your hands (palms, backs and knuckles). Take 1 piece of dough by lifting it with a pastry scraper. Lay the dough across your fists in a very delicate way and carefully stretch it by bouncing it in a circular motion on your hands, and by giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss.

NOTE: Make only one pizza at a time.

During the tossing process, if the dough tends to stick to your hands, lay it down on the floured counter and reflour your hands, then continue the tossing and shaping.
In case you would be having trouble tossing the dough or if the dough never wants to expand and always springs back, let it rest for approximately 5-20 minutes in order for the gluten to relax fully,then try again.
You can also resort to using a rolling pin, although it isn’t as effective as the toss method.

11. When the dough has the shape you want (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter – for a 6 ounces/180g piece of dough), place it on the back of the jelly pan, making sure there is enough semolina/durum flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide and not stick to the pan.

12. Lightly top it with sweet or savory toppings of your choice.

NOTE: Remember that the best pizzas are topped not too generously. No more than 3 or 4 toppings (including sauce and cheese) are sufficient.

13. Slide the garnished pizza onto the stone in the oven or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for abour 5-8 minutes.

NOTE: After 2 minutes baking, take a peek. For an even baking, rotate 180°.

If the top gets done before the bottom, you will need to move the stone or jelly pane to a lower shelf before the next round. On the contrary, if the bottom crisps before the cheese caramelizes, then you will need to raise the stone or jelly.

14. Take the pizza out of the oven and transfer it to a cutting board or your plate. In order to allow the cheese to set a little, wait 3-5 minutes before slicing or serving.