Butterscotch Caramel Popcorn + Recipe

It's the early hours of 2nd January 2016, and I am watching Seinfeld. Jerry was eating some popcorn, and I had serious food envy.

Attempt 2: Finished article. Way too much syrup, but super yummy

Attempt 1: Homemade Caramel

I didn't want ordinary popcorn, so made an easy butterscotch caramel to pour over it, and baked it for that signature texture.

Popped

Preparation time took around less than 15 minutes, plus another hour in the oven, and don't forget you can store your caramel sauce in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, and use it for many other things, so do not feel obliged to make 3 bags of caramel popcorn.

1st attempt: Just before baking

Unfortunately, I must have overcooked the caramel so I had an unpleasant burnt sugar taste that was also giving me an actual headache.

2nd attempt: with salted peanuts

I decided to stop playing games, and seeing as I had some heavy cream that needed using, I tried again with a salted butterscotch caramel recipe that I felt more confident making.

Attempt 2: Not such an amazing colour or clarity, but AMAZING taste!

I made much more than needed and had to gestimate the proportions as it was dictated by the remaining cream I had, but now I'm getting into sterilising hats, I just put the extra in the jars I had for later use.

Repurposed Jars

Butterscotch Caramel Popcorn

Time: 75 minutes preparation + 1 hour cooling

Yield: 2-3 large bowls

Storage: popcorn can be stored in an airtight container out of direct sunlight for up to 5 days,, caramel can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks

Ingredients

• 1/2-1 cup popcorn kernels/2-3 bags of plain* microwave popcorn
• Optional: 2 cup peanuts
• Optional: 1-1,5 tsp sea salt*

Butterscotch Caramel Sauce

• 75 g unsalted butter
• 50 g brown sugar
• 50 g white sugar
• 50g syrup
• 100 ml double/heavy cream
• 2 tsp sea salt

Method

1. Put the oven on to 120 °C.
2. Melt the butter, sugars, and syrup ingredients in a medium sized saucepan until simmering. This should take 3-5 minutes.
3. Whilst step 2 is happening, pop your corn using your chosen method
4. Take the saucepan off the heat, and add the cream and salt, and stir well.
5. Return to the heat for 1 minute, constantly stirring.
6. Place the popped popcorn in a large bowl, add the peanuts if you are using them, and pour the butterscotch sauce over everything in the bowl.
7. Stir the mixture thoroughly to evenly coat the dry ingredients with the sauce.
8. Spread the popcorn evenly on a lined baking sheet, sprinkle with 1-1,5 tsp salt if desired*, and bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes
9. When finished, place the baking tray in a safe place to cool completely.
10. Break into bite-sized pieces, and store in an airtight container. Or snack immediately.

*If using a saltier variation of microwave popcorn, adjust the salt sprinkled accordingly.

Maple Coconut Caramel Bites

Recipe base from Not Quite Nigella

Mrs NQN has many ideas and gives many inspirations. My one issue is that I feel that prior knowledge is required for a few recipes, and therefore vital pointers are omitted in the instructions.

I felt that this recipe was one such case.

I was so excited that I had all the ingredients and also an opportunity to use my new cooking thermometer, that I did not do my usual sense check when I was reading the recipe, so did not realise until the crucial moment that I did not know what the final tinder toffee, perhaps(?) was meant to be like either in appearance or texture.

Bubbling away

I ended up with a bit of a roue after adding the final ingredients that somehow devolved into a granular breadcrumb like mixture that in no way resembled caramel or toffee or indeed gel or liquid like.

Baked Caramel

I was not willing to go through this process of getting the syrup to 150°C again so grabbed the last of my homemade caramel from the fridge and my jar of Dulce de Leche and added enough to spread it over my tin, baked it for just under 10 minutes, and ended up with a chewy coconut-ty mess. I could see that this would never harden to be able to be broken into the signature brittle pieces, so I went through the sticky procedure of rolling clumps up into balls or bites.

Jar o' Poo? Sorry, maple coconut bites

I have since written to Lorraine of NQN, and I am hoping that she updates her instructions so I can try it again with more confidence!

Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake

Recipe base from Feast by Nigella Lawson through Not Quite Nigella.

I should have known that the recipe was too elegantly simple and indulgent to have come from anyone other than Nigella Lawson.

After my recent spat of sub-par cakes, I have been wandering through the endless wasteland of internet recipes, trying to find an interesting cake to make to somehow redeem my tattered reputation. I stumbled across this recipe on notquitenigella.com and as I had all the ingredients, I figured I could give it a go.

I'm not a huge fan of chocolate cake, and still feeling rather wary of cakes after the succession of relative failures, I didn't have the highest of hopes, but I'm no quitter.

This was a very easy cake to make... the hardest part was mixing the dry ingredients into the wet without over beating it. This was all alleviated once the hot water was added.

First attempt - milk chocolate chips

When I made this cake for a second time, I combined the wet with dry ingredients with a wooden spoon, added the water, and then went back to the hand mixer.

Having made three of these cakes two days in a row, I would say that I preferred the first cake where I used milk chocolate chips. I had nearly run out of milk chocolate for the second batch, so I used dark chocolate chips, that in my mind made it far too rich.

Second batch - mainly dark chocolate chips

I have to say that my first experience of this cake set a positive precedent, and it is so simple to make that I recommend this as The Go-To chocolate cake recipe.


Available at Samara's Baked Goods

Chocolate and Sea Salt Caramel Bundt Cake

Recipe based on Tesco.com (LINK)

So I have been eyeing this recipe up from across the virtual room, and decided to give it a go seeing as I'm in a bundt and ring cake phase.

The instructions were very clear, however I would amend the instructions to adding the dry mix to the egg mixture, rather than the other way around that was directed. I found doing it that way made it difficult to stir.

I managed to mess up royally - twice - after adding too much baking powder to the first dry mix (2 tablespoons rather than teaspoons), I decided to bag that mix for another time, and make another dry mix. So... second time lucky? No chance. Instead of using self raising flour, I used plain flour. So ironically, I ended up adding another 5 teaspoons to the dry mix in a bid to convert the plain flour into self raising.

batter. tin was buttered, floured, and cocoa'd

This all seemed like a crafty plan, however the self satisfied smile was soon on the other side of my face after the cake sank like the Titanic after I checked it at my usual 40 minute mark.

turned out cake after 20 mins cooling in tin.

I was feeling pretty low at this point, as my cakes have lost their quality, and frustratingly I don't quite know why. I bought a new hand mixer as the variable speed switch on my old one has stopped working and therefore it only operates on one speed.

I digress. I decided to plough on, because as much as I dislike presenting food (or anything) not quite to my standard, I dislike waste more (obviously I am a tupperware fan), so onwards!

Caramel

The caramel is the crowning glory of this cake, and was the best caramel recipe I have ever used, but beware: it is potent! It tastes so rich that it glides down your throat in a way that would make you believe it had alcohol in it. I used about 25g of lys sirup, and 25g of the real deal: Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup.

Melting chocolate, and making caramel

I managed to decorate the cake as directed, however omitted the almonds in case of nut and seed allergies. As you can see from the final picture, the cake was very covered in chocolate shavings... for that reason I would halve the chocolate used for it.

Final Product

Available at Samara's Baked Goods

ANZAC Biscuits

Combined recipes from BBC Good Food, and Lovefood.com

Personally, I was not pleased with the outcome, however I have to remember that both biscuits and cakes taste better when they are cool. Colleagues enjoyed them anyhow!
Comments made on BBC Good Food under samaraspuff

Rating: 6/10

Lemon Poppy Seed Loaf Cake

Baking two Lemon Poppy Seed Cake based on a recipe found on Tesco.com (LINK).

Comments made directly on site after a first attempt at this cake; using these as a guidance on this time.

Cake Check @ 45 minutes - nice colour, however cake was far from being baked through. Covered with foil to prevent burning, and exchanged cooking shelf from a sheet to a traditional griddle style, and set timer for 15 minutes. Will check after 10 minutes.

Cake Check @ 60 minutes - Foil has done its job. One cake has passed the skewer test, however the other one is still not set. Replaced the foil and returned to the oven with the under-done loaf at the back of the shelf for another 5 minutes.
Weigh the mixtures when doing multiple cakes to ensure even amounts?

Cake Check @ 65 minutes - removed the cake that was done to cool. The other cake was setting but not there yet, so returned to the oven with its foil cap for another 10 minutes.

Cake Check @ 75 minutes - second cake has finally set. Returned to oven with foil cap for another 5 minutes.

80 minutes baking time in total.

It is late, so will take the cakes in to work whole; I am not bothered enough to slice them up.

Note to self:
Where recipe says 1.3 cups sugar for sauce, use 1/3 cup.
Use caster sugar for syrup (Strösocker Finkornigt)
Don't stir the syrup, it makes it crystallise

Rating #1: 9/10
Rating #2: 9/10 (a little bit drier than I wanted - perhaps from using the correct amount of syrup??)

a bit flatter than I'd like, but very tasty