Rich, luxurious caramel with a pinch of sea salt reminds me of the gooey-centered masterpieces I overindulged on in my favourite Parisian chocolateries some years ago. These days, whenever I hear the words ‘salted caramel’, my ears prick up like a meerkat on predator watch. And because it’s become so popular, this happens often.

In this recipe, I’ve paired salted caramel with toasted sesame seeds, dark chocolate and a touch of coconut oil. Trust me when I say this flavour combo will take you straight to heaven.

Nutty sesame seeds are ground and added into the biscuit base before being topped with a ridiculously-generous amount of salted caramel blended with coconut oil. The caramel is then set and crowned with sesame oil-spiked dark chocolate.

Be sure to line your tin with plenty of greaseproof paper and groundnut oil to make sure they don’t stick. Try to chill overnight and cut with a super-sharp and hot knife.

The deep, nutty flavours make these bars the perfect after-dinner treat with a shot of espresso. Just be sure to cut them into small cubes. I love them as an afternoon pick-me-up with a glass of cold milk.

If you love the combination of peanut butter and chocolate, you need to try the marriage that is sesame and chocolate. Forget Reese’s Cups and plain old Millionaire’s Shortbread. These will blow your mind.

Salted Sesame Caramel Bars
Serves 16
Adapted from Donna Hay

Ingredients

For the biscuit base:
200g plain flour
30g toasted sesame seeds, ground
150g unsalted butter
100g light brown sugar

For the caramel filling:
2x 397g tins sweetened condensed milk
130g golden syrup
125g coconut oil
1 tsp sea salt

For the chocolate layer:
200g dark chocolate
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
Toasted sesame seeds, to sprinkle (optional)

Method

1. Combine the flour, ground sesame seeds, brown sugar and melted butter. Press into a greased and lined 6-inch by 9inch tin. Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 20 minutes.

2. While the biscuit base cooks, make the caramel. Combine the condensed milk, golden syrup and coconut oil. Cook until very lightly-golden and slightly thickened. Add the sea salt and set aside.

3. Remove the biscuit base from the oven and pour over the caramel. Allow to set at room temperature until cool. Place in the fridge for 2 hours or until the caramel has set.

4. Melt the chocolate over a double boiler and stir in the toasted sesame oil. Allow to cool slightly and pour over the set caramel. You can sprinkle over some toasted sesame seeds if you like but I love a smooth, shiny top. Return to the fridge to set for 4 hours or overnight.

5. Slice into bars or pieces as large as you can handle. The recipe makes approx. 16 squares.

Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 7 days… if they last that long.

Love Sanjana

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Life is sweet. Three weekends ago, my fiancée and I had our Hindu engagement ceremony. It was a big, beautiful blur of family, friends, flowers, faith, and food. After all the commotion of planning the event, all I feel like doing is putting on my lion-print onesie, staying home and baking something sweet.

These eggless cinnamon rolls can be made with pretty much any filling you like. I’ve even used the recipe to make this Cardamom Wreath with Rose Drizzle and Candied Lemon Peel. You can add chocolate, dried fruit, nuts and any spices you fancy, making it as simple or as complicated as you like.

My colleague at Food Network UK and fashion blogger, Jo’s Clothes is the biggest baked goods fiend I’ve ever met – no lie. After asking her thoughts on what I should bake this weekend, she mentioned our favourite cinnamon roll recipe from Lotte Duncan. It’s so easy and utterly delicious. I fell asleep last night thinking about how I could put my own spin on it and here’s what I came up with.

Pillow-soft, buttery cinnamon rolls, encased around rich salted caramel infused with chai spices, fleur de sel and baked until golden on the outside. Drizzle with extra salted caramel, allowing it dribble into the swirled craters and down the sides. They’re gorgeously sticky and incredibly moreish. Serve with a glass of cold milk.

Salted Caramel Cinnamon Rolls with Chai Spices
Makes 20

Ingredients

For the salted caramel sauce (adapted from Nigella Lawson):

75g salted butter
50g soft light brown sugar
50g caster sugar
50g golden syrup
200ml double cream
1 teaspoon fleur de sel
½ tsp chai masala

For the cinnamon roll dough:
450g strong white bread flour
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp dried yeast
275ml lukewarm water
2 tsp groundnut oil

For the filling:

175g very soft butter
4 tbsp light brown sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 quantity of the salted caramel sauce, cooled
To garnish:
Extra salted caramel sauce
Pinch fleur de sel (not table salt!)
Chocolate shavings, optional

Method

For the cinnamon roll dough, combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and bring together using your hands. Knead for 10 minutes. Place into a greased bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Leave to rise in a warm place for 90 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the salted caramel sauce by melting the butter, sugars and syrup a small pan until melted. Bring to a gentle boil and cook for a few minutes, making sure the bottom of the pan doesn’t scorch and swirling the pan carefully from time to time.
Add the cream, fleur de sel and chai spices and stir. Cook for another minute or two and then remove from the heat and allow to cool completely.

To make the filling, combine the softened butter, cinnamon, sugar and half of the cooled salted caramel sauce. Beat well.

Heat the oven to 180C and line a large tray with baking paper.

Once the dough has risen, knock it back and give it a good knead to remove all the air bubbles. This will ensure an even rise in the oven, maintaining the shape of the rolls. Half the dough as you’ll be repeating the rolling process twice in order to make smaller rolls.

Take one half of the dough and on a lightly-floured surface, roll the dough into a large rectangle until it’s about 1/2cm in thickness. Spread the filling mixture all over the surface. From the longest side, tightly roll the dough into a log shape. Cut the dough into 1cm-thick rounds. I find the easiest way to do this is using a pizza cutter – this avoids any snagging. Place the rolls into the baking tray, keeping them close to each other and snug. Repeat this process for the other half of the dough. Note: this will get messy!

Bake the rolls in the preheated over for around 20 minutes or until risen and golden.

Drizzle with extra salted caramel sauce, a tiny pinch of fleur de sel and grated chocolate. Serve warm with a glass of cold milk.

Love Sanjana

The post Salted Caramel Cinnamon Rolls appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

I’m sorry for the long and pretentious title this week – well sort of. Usually, I like to keep recipe titles as short as possible for the sake of clarity and focus (and because I’m easily confused). Although, I think a pompous sounding title is quite fitting when describing a pompous looking lamington.

Let me introduce you to my second entry to Mr P’s Re-Inventing the Lamington competition 2011. Vegan chocolate sponge filled with pandan cream cheese and coated in a layer of dark chocolate. As if this eggless lamington wasn’t trying hard enough to please already, it’s then crowned with a shard of pistachio and salted caramel glass.

NOTE: I’ve had a few comments about this being a ‘vegan’ lamington. Let me clarify: this is NOT a vegan lamington because it’s filled with cream cheese and covered in a brick-ish layer of dark chocolate. However, I’ve highlighted that the chocolate sponge used for this lamington IS vegan. I repeat: these are eggless lamingtons using a vegan sponge for any vegan readers who want to make chocolate cake.

Regular readers will already know that one of my favourite flavours is aromatic pandan. Pandan is a tropical plant which grows abundantly in South East Asia. Pandan extract comes from pulverising the long, spiky leaves into a rice and vanilla scented paste. Pandan extract can be used in both sweet and savoury dishes and is popularly known for being used in chiffon cake. I like to use it in hot and spicy curries, thumbprint biscuits, pandan burfi and of course, chocolate lamingtons.

I’ve tried pairing pandan with so many different ingredients – usually resulting in unspeakable failure. So I stuck to the flavours I knew worked. For once.

Pandan and chocolate are super together, as are pistachios and salted caramel. I feel as if the number of ingredients in this lamington is justified by how well the flavours compliment one another. So don’t give me that look, Cynic.

It pains me to admit that my lamington sponge is never as perfect as I want it to be. Eggless sponge is tricky to get right, and I’m a woman on a mission to get it right.

Chocolate sponge is much easier to make eggless or veganise than vanilla cake because of the way chocolate and raising agents react with one another – that’s not to say I haven’t cocked it up many a time. In my baking experience, I’ve produced chocolate cakes that crumble at the touch of a finger, chocolate cakes that are so chewy you’d never want to touch a Hubba Bubba again, and chocolate cakes which could knock out The Great Khali during a friendly game of catch gone wrong.

I’m one of those people who like sweet and savoury together. Unless it’s pineapple on pizza, which is sick, twisted and entirely wrong. Moving on, this pistachio-studded salted caramel glass makes a pretty garnish and actually tastes good. You could use any kind of nuts you want, but in keeping with the green theme, I opted for emerald-like pistachios.

Shall I stop babbling now?

Dark Chocolate Pandan Lamingtons with Pistachio and Salted Caramel Glass
(serves 6-8)

Ingredients

For the vegan chocolate sponge:

225g self raising flour
120g caster sugar
70g icing sugar
70g cocoa powder
50ml sunflower oil
250 ml water
2 tsp instant coffee
½ tsp salt
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda

For the pandan cream cheese filling:

250g cream cheese
4 tbsp icing sugar
½ tsp pandan extract

For the salted caramel and pistachio glass:

150g caster sugar
65ml water
Broken pistachios
Coarse sea salt

To cover the lamingtons:

400g dark cooking chocolate (70% cocoa)

Method

1. For the chocolate sponge, sift together all of the dry ingredients excluding the icing sugar and caster sugar.

2. In a separate bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients, icing sugar and caster sugar. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and slowly combine until thoroughly mixed. Do not overwork.

3. Pour the cake batter into a greased and lined 6X8inch pan, and bake at 160°C for 35-45 minutes. Don’t open the oven door at all or for at least the first 25 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Cool thoroughly, trim if necessary and then cut in half.

4. For the salted caramel and pistachio glass, heat the sugar and water in a heavy based saucepan on a low heat. Do not stir the mixture, instead, gently swirl it around from time to time until it is caramelised. Watch it like a hawk because it can quickly burn. If it becomes too dry, add a tsp of boiling water.

5. Grease a steel tray with some oil and pour the caramelised mixture on top. Swirl it around but don’t burn yourself. Quickly scatter over pistachios and a little coarse sea salt. Allow to harden.

6. When the caramel has hardened fully (around 20-30 minutes) gently tap it with a knife to crack it into large pieces.

7. Combine all the ingredients for the pandan cream cheese and spread over one chocolate sponge. Top with the other chocolate sponge.

8. Heat the dark chocolate over a double boiler to gently melt it. Don’t stir too much.

9. Coat the cake in a layer of chocolate. Refrigerate it until the chocolate has hardened. Remove from the fridge and cover in another layer of chocolate, this time doing it neatly.

10. Allow to set. To serve, cut a slice and top with a shard of pistachio and salted caramel glass.

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