74/99: Chocolate Layer Cake with Caramel Ganache

I've been looking forward to this cake and at the same time dreading this cake. I love caramel and I love dark chocolate but, as I've mentioned many many times before, I DETEST making caramel. My caramel batting average usually fits into the "third time's a charm" category. I can never get it right on the first try. 

69/99: Caramelized Pineapple Pudding Cakes

 

Either my baking skills are rapidly declining or these little things were just mean. I started making these back in August when I made the Brioche that goes in it.  I made the Creme Anglaise that the brioche cubes have to sit in and never got around to making the rest of it.

Ever since then, the recipe has been staring at me from the index.  The thing is, I didn't want to make another brioche.  A few months ago I called several bakeries in town and one of them had brioche. I went to grab one but when I got there I was told that someone had just come and they bought the rest of them.  All that to say, these have been cursed since the first time I opened the book.

56/99: Karmel Cake

Rose describes her Karmel Cake as "soft textured and deeply flavorful." Seeing that it's caramel flavored, it sounds divine.

But I was not looking forward to this cake for two reasons:

24/99: Mud Turtle Cupcakes

 

 

After I read Rose's description of these little cupcakes I was pretty pumped about making them.  Imagine this:

"First you encounter the taste of toasted whole pecans; quickly thereafter, the ganache "mud" mingling with the slightly sticky caramel; finally, your teeth sink into the most tender, full-flavored chocolate cake."

Are you drooling yet? I was.

7/99 Apple Caramel Charlotte

The Apple Caramel Charlotte is a cake that I've been looking forward to making for quite awhile.  It's a really pretty cake in the end with the stacked cake crust and the apple rose in the middle.