This month’s Daring Baker Challenge was submitted by Dolores of Culinary Curiosity (where you will find the recipes) and features a cake by Shuna from Eggbeater. The challenge is a fabulous study in caramel! The rich, moist cake is flavored with caramel syrup and then topped with a brown butter frosting that also gets its flare from the syrup. In the end I added a bit of dark chocolate ganache, which is a lovely contrast to the sweetness of the cake. I decorated the top of my sweet caramel cupcakes with giant roses, which I’ll show you how to make!
I baked the batter in cupcake papers and got about 28 in all, they took about 15 minutes to bake. After they came out of the oven and cooled I cut a small portion from the top using a paring knife.
I filled the holes with bittersweet chocolate ganache:
1 cup heavy cream
8 ounces high quality bittersweet chocolate (72%), finely chopped
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup creme fraiche or sour cream
1 teaspoon rum (or vanilla)
Heat the cream in a small sauce pan until simmering. Place the chocolate in a medium size bowl and pour the hot cream over it. Make sure all the chocolate is covered and allow to sit for 3-5 minutes. Gently stir the chocolate mixture until perfectly smooth, not lumps. Add the butter and stir until melted and smooth. Add the creme fraiche and rum and stir. Cover and allow to cool to room temperature.
Once the ganache is set up at room temperature you can pipe it into the cupcakes using a piping bag and round tip. It makes for a nice surprise in the center of your cupcake!
Now we can pipe the roses using the caramelized butter frosting from the challenge (recipe available at Culinary Curiosity) or any other buttercream or frosting.
You will need:
a Piping Bag and a large rose tip
A Large Rose nail (the thing that looks like a giant thumb tack)
The Cake Bible
by Rose Levy Beranbaum has a nice description of the piping out an icing rose.
Your icing needs to be quite stiff to pull this off. If you icing is too soft, the rose will not hold its shape. You may need to add more powdered sugar to the icing to get the right consistency. Start by piping a large blob of icing in the center of the nail. You need to make sure that you build this blob up quite a bit so that you have room to work down from the top of it.
Now you will create the rose bud at the center of the flower. Hold the base of the nail in your left hand and the bag of icing at a 45° angle. The wide end of the rose tip will be facing down. Touch the tip to the top of your mound and as you squeeze the icing out rotate your nail counter clockwise. You will create a ribbon of icing and you will move the tip to the bottom of the mound. See above picture.
To create the petals you will start just where the bud and the mound meet. Again holding the bag at a 45° angle, you will squeeze the bag as you twist the nail counter clockwise. This time you only want to go nearly half way around the bud. Repeat on the other side.
To create the rest of the petals start in the middle of the last piped petal and repeat, but this time 5 petals all the way around your rose until you have it as full as you like.
Once your rose is piped to your liking, take your kitchen shears and cut the rose off the nail, right at the base. You will not want to completely shut the scissors, but leave them open enough to support the rose as you carry it to the cupcake. See how my scissors are still slightly open in above picture. Then I just lift off.
Carefull place the rose onto the cake or caramel cupcakes.
Thank you to Shuna and the other hosts for this month’s Daring Baker Challenge, Alex from the blondie and brownie duo and Jenny from Foray into Food! It was fun and delicious!
I always wondered how to get the icing rose off the nail and onto the cake in one piece! Brilliant!
These look amazing and the ganache is just the perfect touch. As usual, Zoe!
I’m loving the ganache with the flavor of this cake — and the roses on the cupcakes are beautiful. I’ve never tried to make them, so maybe it’s about time. You’re so inspirational!
Your cupcakes are just beautiful, Zoe! The roses rally make them special. Thanks so much for the instructions on how to make them. 🙂
Ooo, the ganache filling sounds like the perfect addition to this cake. Love the cupcakes, and nice rose tutorial!
How cool are those roses?!
Oh Zoe, I love the roses on the cupcakes, and the ganache filling. Very cool instructions too.
Oh, the ganache sounds like a brilliant addition. Your cupcakes are so pretty!
Wonder ful cupcakes and take on this challenge. Your roses are perfection.
Oh wow, those look gorgeous! And I love the addition of the ganache. MMM!
Bittersweet chocolate would be a nice surprise in this cake. Thanks for the tip about how to make the roses! Beautiful!
ta décoration est magnifique 🙂 du vrai travail de pro..avec la ganache, c’est encore plus gourmand !
The ganache is the perfect addition
Your cupcakes look so pretty. I really like the roses on top. Lovely job!
Wow! these are not only beautiful but sound like they would taste divine! Well done Zoe 🙂
Your cupcakes are sensational. The ganaches seems like a wonderful addition and the buttercream flowers wow!
Oooh! Fancy! I’ve never tried making icing flowers. How pretty!
Love the “surprise” in the middle and the petals made of icing. Thanks for the decorating tips!
Mmmm bittersweet chocolate ganache in a caramel cupcake AND a beautiful rose on the top? Fabulous! (Nice tutorial on how to pipe the roses too!)
Very beautiful. If there really was one way to make caramel better, you did it with chocolate!
Thanks for the rose tutorial…
You make those roses look so easy! They are quite beautiful, and the ganache is a perfect touch too.
The ganache sound like a great pairing, and I love the roses! I will have to give that a try.
Lovely flowers. Great job showing us how to make them in our own kitchen!
thank you so much for teaching us how to make the roses. I have always wondered how to make them..I can’t wait to try them out myself. Thanks!
i love how you took those step by step shots of the flower making process. brilliant!
Just beautiful! I love the caramel frosting rose and chocolate surprise treat.
I think these are some of the prettiest cupcakes I’ve ever seen (and they sound delicious, too!)
Thank you for the tutorial, very nice job. I hope to make them soon. Beautiful!
~m.
i love the roses and the ganache sounds like just my kind of surprise. lovely!
Beautiful cupcakes! I totally agree that they needed a shot of bittersweet chocolate (I put curls on mine 🙂
wow, those look great. The ganache is a great idea and thanks for showing us how you made the roses. They are a fabulous finishing touch.
what a beautiful job with the roses! thanks for the step by step tutorial.
I came so close to adding some chocolate element to my cake as well, since I’m certain it would have paired beautifully with the sweet caramel cake and frosting.
Lovely piping job, by the way!
A great way to make the cake. The chocolate was a great addition.
I love Ganache! What a wonderful idea! I will have try that for sure. Thanks for the “how to”.
How pretty! That was a great take on the challenge!
This is brilliant! We have 2 things in common for this challenge: the chocolate ganache and the buttercream roses (which i had the idea of in one of the latest post of Deb from Smitten kitchen). But your idea of hiding the chocolate ganache is much much great.. and.. obviously, next time I’ll want to pipe roses, I’ll have to follow your step-by-step photos..
your cupcakes are beautiful!
I filled my cupcakes with bittersweet chocolate ganache too!
Gorgeous! It’s the bittersweet ganache surprise that gets me every time.
They are so pretty! Love how you’ve filled it with chocolate ganache!
They look wonderful! I love the rose!
These are wonderful. I love the aesthetic, and of course a ganache surprise is a good surprise any day, in my opinion!
Wow! I love the addition of the ganache! nice touch sounds tasty:) love the roses too!!
At first I thought, why would anyone remove cake? But then I saw the chocolate ganache… ohhh, I understand now. Yum.
Thanks for the tutorial, Zoe! I love how you piped those roses.
Whooee! what a fantastic surprise in your gorgeous rose cupcake! I haven’t made buttercream roses for a while…I’ll have to root around my toolbox to see if I have a tip that large! Your tip appears to be quite large! I have tip envy.
How beautiful!!! You really took creativity to the next step. Wilton should make you their spokesperson
Gorgeous job, Zoe! Every time I try to make roses they end up looking like cabbages. LOL!
I bet that choco ganache really cut the sweetness of that great icing. Lovely cupcakes. Looks delicious.
Ok, these are the best cupcake versions ever – I love the chocolate ganache hidden in the top, and thanks for the tip on how to make the icing rose….beautiful job!!
Chocolate ganache. Brilliant! Thanks for baking with us in November… and for the tutorial on buttercream roses.