Tag Archives: caramel

Caramel au beurre salé

Salted butter caramel

This time I’ll share with you a very simple recipe that contains only three main ingredients: sugar, cream, and salted butter. French people use this caramel in many different ways: as “macaron” filling, adding caramel flavour to cakes, cookies or any other pastry. It is very typical in Britanny, where they often eat it with crêpes (pancakes) as a dessert.

By changing the quantity of cream, you can make it more or less liquid. You can also add some nuts, chocolate, dried fruits to give it a more original taste. For fillings, you need to use half sugar and  half cream + butter to give it a more solid consistency.

Salted butter caramel can be a perfect gift as well, for example to your loved ones during Christmas time – I have received several orders already ;)

salted butter caramel

salted butter caramel

 Yield: 500ml of caramel, enough to serve with pancakes for 5

Ingredients: 

  • 200g sugar
  • 250ml cream
  • 50g salted butter (or 80g if you want a stronger taste)
  • a pinch sea salt (ideally “fleur de sel”)

Step by step: 

  •  Prepare all ingredients: cream, sugar, salted butter & sea salt.
cream, suger, sea salt

cream, sugar, sea salt

  • Pour sugar in a saucepan and let it melt – mixing in the solid sugar grains from time to time with the melted sugar. Make sure that the sugar does not burn, keep the heat low. Meanwhile, pre-heat the cream in another sauce pan.
let melt sugar & warm up cream

let melt sugar & warm up cream

  • When the sugar is melted and dark brown, add the pre-heated cream little by little, all the while whisking it quickly with the help of a spoon.
add cream

add cream

  • Once the cream is well incorporated, add the salted butter and a pinch of salt.
add butter

add butter

  • Serve in small jars or a bowl, depending on when you plan to eat it.

Enjoy!

Piparkūkas

Latvian gingerbread cookies

In Latvia gingerbread cookies are very typical for Christmas. Around that time, every single house is filled with gingerbread cookie smell. In Latvia, you usually buy the gingerbread cookie dough and bake them at home, but living abroad this isn’t possible. So, for the third year in a row, I’m preparing my gingerbread cookie dough myself. I still don’t get the perfect consistency, but the taste and smell are better than the store-bought ones.  Prepare your home for Christmas and bake some cookies!

piparkūkas

piparkūkas

Yield: ca. 4kg of dough (which means –  a lot of cookies!)

Ingredients:

  • 400g honey
  • 400g brown (or white) sugar
  • 400g butter
  • 1,5kg-2kg flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 20-30g of gingerbread spices: you can mix them yourself  using cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg, ginger, black pepper… or just buy a prepared gingerbread spices packet, for instance from Santa Maria (from Sweden)

Continue reading

Tarte tatin

Upside-down apple pie

The “tarte Tatin” is an upside-down pie in which the fruit (usually apples) is caramelized in butter and sugar before the pie is baked. As the base you can use either short-crust pastry or puff pastry. I’ve prepared an apple tarte tatin with well caramelized ‘Golden Delicious’ apples and shortcrust pastry.

tarte tatin

tarte tatin

Yield: 8 portions

Ingredients:

  • 250g shortcrust pastry
  • 1,5kg apples (Golden Delicious)
  • 200g powder sugar
  • 130g semi-salted butter

Continue reading