Caramel Cake and bonus Caramel Sauce

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You would think that after almost a year of baking with Heavenly Cake bakers I would be prepared for any issues that baking and frosting a cake can throw at me.  I was wrong; because the baking gods continue to keep me humble by once in a while just hurling a tiny-itsy bitty curve ball that will explode into a curse fest in my kitchen.

It all started when I took a peek at last month’s issue of Saveur magazine and saw they were featuring southern cakes.
Oh my heart did a happy dance when I opened my mailbox and totally skipped everything to read the article and see the pretty cake pictures.  I’m a huge fan of homemade cakes;the ones that are passed down from generation to generation. Yes, I do appreciate the fancy cakes. But, the homemade ones hold my heart.

So when I hosted a “Chica Brunch” at my house a couple of weeks ago, and one of the guests was celebrating her birthday,  I decided to surprise her with a small cake.  Since I knew she had the same love affair with caramel as me, there really was no choice but to make the cake in the article.

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Salmon en Croute with Prosciutto and Pea Puree

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I get so happy when I try something totally out of the ordinary, new to me and out of the box and it works.

Actually it not only just works – but, it exceeds all of my expectations.

Then there is totally a happy dance in my kitchen (and my tummy!)

Case in point – this week’s choice for our Gutsy Cooks club.

I could have gone totally safe with the Creamy Pot Roast Chicken – no brainer.   Or totally walk the yeast path again with the Brown Mushroom Tortano – I wasn’t feeling the mushroom elements. But, I have always wanted to try making Salmon wrapped in something, and puff pastry seemed to be the best wrapping vessel – so it was going to be the Salmon en Croute all along –another one off the bucket list!

Easy, peasy.

 

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GCC: Chile with Cornbread Top

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This past week Gutsy Cooks decided to join the masses and have open choice with our menu options and celebrate the upcoming Super Bowl madness.

The theme was to post our favorite game food.

Originally, we planned to have a couple of friends over for the game and that plan crashed and burned and it ended up being just us on a Sunday night.

Or actually just Tom, since I’m not a big football fan.

But, let me totally get off topic here and give a HUGE SHOUT to Madonna.  You ROCKED the halftime show…you still got it, you still made get up and VOUGE!

*cough, cough* Back to our main topic… our dinner.

I knew that we were not going be eating finger food, so the only option for a dinner was the Chili and that was my starting point.

I gutsied up the whole thing, omitted some stuff, added others and totally went rogue and built my chili as a Sheppard’s pie.  I wanted to bake some corn bread to go along with the chili and then had a light bulb moment and thought, why not add the corn bread ON TOP of the chili and bake it?

And that is what I did.

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