Receta How Chocolate Angel Food Cake with Bourbon Caramel Sauce became Brownies with Bourbon Caramel Frosting
If you’ve visited this blog for a bit, you know I live in Denver, Colorado. One mile high. Five thousand two hundred and eighty feet above sea level. Sea level being the place where recipes are written and then folks ‘up in the air’ have to revise for our altitude. I get it; I’ve been here a long time. Air is thinner and dryer so baking requires some adjustment. I think of those high altitude warnings on the side of cake boxes when I was growing up in a suburb of St. Louis; those warnings I got to blithely ignore, not even sure what that was all about. Atmospheric pressure was for classroom studies, the stuff you forgot as soon as possible when science was a requirement and not your passion and you lived at ‘normal’ altitude.
Still, getting it and getting things to always work are two completely different animals. I’ve never been afraid to bake here and after some fledgling snafus have come to realize that a smidge less of leavening with maybe a bit more moisture (even our flour becomes drier) usually does the trick. So when this months #Baketogether event with Abby Dodge was announced and it was Angel Food Cake, I had no fear. My only concern was not having an angel food cake pan so when I discovered one in my cupboard that I must have bought long ago at a yard sale, I think you can understand why I thought the fates were on my side.
Not so fast Barbara. Trust me, over the years I have done my share of ‘fixes’ if things don’t go quite as planned. The most popular method of going awry in my kitchen is to have something develop a crater in the center. Too much leavening and the cake rises too fast in our thinner air, the cell structure does not bake quickly enough to hold and the result is that the rise then collapses and voila…a sinkhole. Because I always make some adjustments,snafus are now seldom and typically minor and the addition of some fruit or an extra dollop of frosting is all it takes to right that wrong.
Not today. No…today I present you with my Chocolate Angel Food Pancake; though I guess Flat Tire Cake would be more appropriate. I thought it could have been a bit higher in the pan when I took it out but it was still about 4″ up the sides and I thought I could live with that. Angel food cake pans have little feet on them that are attached to the cake rim, once baked, they are turned upside down to rest on those feet while they cool for an hour. After that, run a knife around the cake to release it and voila…you ‘should’ have an Angel Food cake. Me? I turned to something else in the kitchen for a moment and when I glanced back I noticed my cake laying under the pan on my butcher block. I lifted off the pan and this is what I had. Definitely an #AngelFoodCakeFail. I measured it too; poor thing is just a bit taller than an inch. I actually thought it would taste fine but when my neighbor Sally came over to get some of the brownies, we tasted it. Um. No. It’s pretty pathetic; something is lost without the volume and lightness. Not Abby’s fault; so many ‘flatlanders’ have done amazing versions as testimony to that. Of some solace was my call to my local blogger friend Karen; I thought she could commiserate and I would see what she did to succeed. What I found was that I was not alone!
I’m not one to do a lot of experimenting and testing; for me it either works or it doesn’t and I move on. I won’t say I won’t try this again with some revisions but not today; I’m out of cake flour and don’t have enough eggs so a shopping trip would be in order and I don’t have the time. I guess I could have left with this story except for one thing. The Bourbon Caramel sauce I made for this cake was so good; it would have been a shame to just ignore it, right?
Make sure you visit Abby’s website for the original recipe and lots of different variations and join us if you want. Abby gives us a recipe on the first of each month as inspiration and we have a month to do our own thing, posting anytime during the month and chatting on Twitter via the hashtag #baketogether. It’s a great supportive community and a fun exercise for both novice and experienced bakers alike.
I made these brownies, substituting pecans for walnuts and then topped them with the Bourbon Caramel frosting.
Brownies with Bourbon Caramel Frosting
Author: Barbara Kiebel
Recipe type: Dessert
Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 15 mins
Total time: 35 mins
Serves: 8-10
Link to the suggested recipe in the post or use your favorite recipe.
- 1 cup of sugar
- ¼ cup water
- 6 Tbsp butter
- ½ cup half and half (many recipes for caramel sauce call for heavy cream; I’ve had great success with half and half but if you want an even richer end result, by all means substitute an equal amount of heavy cream)
- 3 Tbsp bourbon (I used Maker’s Mark)
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1-2 Tbsp milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
Whisk bourbon into half and half and set aside.
Combine 1 cup sugar and ¼ cup water in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly.
Once mixture starts to boil, turn heat to medium-low and stop whisking.
Continue to boil until the mixture turns amber, about 10 to 15 minutes.
Remove pan from the stove and add butter; whisk in butter as it melts.
When butter has melted, whisk in half and half mixture; it will bubble vigorously; just continue whisking til smooth.
Refrigerate until it becomes cool and firm.
Once the caramel has cooled and become more solid, remove it from the fridge
Cream the butter and caramel together.
Add the powdered sugar a cup at a time, alternating with the milk. Mix until smooth.
Add the vanilla and mix in well.
Cut the brownies into large sections and frost with the icing (I prefer to cut mine first before frosting but you can also frost the brownies in the pan.
Allow to sit for 20-30 for the frosting to firm up.
Cook time does not include the time required to make your favorite brownie recipe.
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