Millenium Falcon Salted Caramel Cake

May the fourth be with you!

Again another year has rolled passed. While I don’t care much about any kind of holiday and special cooking and baking for it, I like May the 4th – Star Wars Day, well I like the pun on the phrase “May the force be with you!” Fine, I liked the movies, too.

But that’s it. Ah, well, when I have the chance I bake something … and I reckon, I will go to the cinema to watch episode VIII in December.

However, I am not going to send a model of a spacecraft into space in order to get some attention. Hm …!?! Maybe I could sent a cake of a spacecraft into space …

Anyway, during the weekend I was talking to a friend and he suggested I could maybe make a Death Star cake. Nah, that would be too much work. What about some cupcakes. We arranged some batter and added green food colouring. After baking, the idea was to add some marzipan to make them look like Yoda heads. Well, the cupcakes didn’t turn out that green and the homemade marzipan not that good for modelling, although it tasted very yummy due to the addition of Amaretto.

Then I got an idea for May the 4th …

A rough sketch of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars that would help me the next day to build a Millennium Falcon cake.

We would need a sponge and some sort of filling or topping. I did some more pondering and researching …

I wanted something with caramel and cream cheese. A quick look at the basics again for achieving it and we are off to shopping. Maybe a marzipan cover would be lovely.

Shopping ready! Now, let’s go for it …

Ingredients:
Sponge:
225 g butter
225 g sugar
4 eggs
225 g (self-rising) flour
1 tsp baking powder
Vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
Salted Caramel Sauce:
200 g brown sugar
85 g butter
120 ml cream
Vanilla extract
1 tsp fleur de sel (or sea salt)
Buttercream:
225 g butter
115 g cream cheese
Vanilla extract
The salted caramel sauce
400 g icing sugar

Method:
Don’t worry, the sponge is just a standard sponge as you might use for a Victoria Sponge cake as well. So, if you don’t feel like Star Wars, have a normal round one, but …

We feel like Star Wars now. After all, John Williams is assisting us through the whole process. So turn up the volume of your speakers. Yes, it would be best this post comes with a soundtrack,but if you want to hear anything, you have to put on the music yourself.

Fine, “Bake we must!”

Take a bowl, add the butter and the sugar for the sponge and get whisking … until it’s fluffy.

Yeah, I don’t know whether that is fluffy, but that’s the way I’m gonna use it. Crack one egg into it. Beat it. Crack another egg. Beat it again. Next egg. More beating. Last egg. Finish beating. Add the vanilla extract.

Now sift in the flour and the baking powder. Don’t forget a pinch of salt. Incorporate everything to get a smooth batter.

For the baking the oven is heated up to 180 °C.

Line a baking tray with baking parchment and spread the batter on it …

Like this it goes into the oven for 25 minutes.

At this point you could be tempted to start the salted caramel sauce. Don’t do it! see where you can tidy up things while the sponge is baking.

Remove the sponge from the oven and give it time to cool down.

Now you can feel free to start the salted caramel sauce. Get yourself a saucepan and add the brown sugar and cover it all with water. Place the remaining ingredients for the sauce nearby …

Put on the heat … full power … energise!

The sauce seems a bit tricky. Obviously, you can’t see when the sugar starts to get an amber colour, for it already has such. Hear it is, where you need to use the force, you need to feel it. Well, you don’t have to close your eyes for the next step, but if you want it, go for it.

Reach out with your senses and feel the caramel getting ready as the liquid is bubbling away. You will sense a change in the bubbling or a tremor in the force …

When that happens, reduce the heat from full to medium, get a wooden spoon into your right hand … eh … or left hand, if you prefer that. Start stirring.

Throw in the butter. Stir and watch it melt away.

Pour in the cream and watch it distribute, stirring all the time.

Add the vanilla extract and the fleur de sell (sea salt), while you continue stirring.

At this point, I turned off the heat and continued stirring with the remaining heat until the caramel sauce stopped bubbling. Then set it aside for cooling.

Back to the sponge. I cut it into half and placed one piece above the other to follow my Millennium Falcon blueprint to cut it out of the sponge.

Hm … it looked … okay …

That will do. In order to be able to proceed here, we need the buttercream ready.

Another bowl, some more whisking and we are ready …

Add the butter and the cream cheese to the bowl and whisk it together. There goes another bit of vanilla extract.

The salted caramel sauce isn’t that hot anymore, so we can spoon it into the bowl as well and mix it in thoroughly.

Bit by bit we add the 400 g icing sugar. That sounds like awful a lot. No worries! Combine it all well. Ah, that looks like awful a lot of buttercream. Fine, we are going to use it all up anyway.

Spread a layer of … let’s say one third of it … on the bottom sponge …

Carefully place the top sponge … eh … on top of it. No big deal, huh?

Use some of the sponge cuttings to create a satellite dish, a round object placed on a wedge.

It’s time to use up that remaining buttercream and cover the whole cake in it. Give it your best to get the cream on. If you have any cream in undesired places, I’m afraid you have to remove it and eat it up. Well, that’s what I did.

Hm, you get an idea of the Millennium Falcon at this point, but we still can do better with some chocolate buttons and a bit chocolate from a decorating pen …

That’s it. In order for my cake decorating skills to improve, I reckon I have to do a few more cakes. Well … if I get any ideas, that is.

When I was younger … much younger … I never had a Millennium Falcon model, but now I have a Millennium Falcon cake and … the only thing can do with it, is eat it up. However, considering the over 500 g of sugar and the amount of sugar in it, I guess, I have to enlist the help of others to deal with the cake. Otherwise I’ll have a BIG problem.

So, if you are i the neighbourhood anytime soon …

Well, I had a model of a TIE-fighter once. I already thought of making some TIE-fighters with cookies and marzipan or even a marzipan X-Wing, but … that would have been a lot harder.

Speaking of marzipan, there was no room for a marzipan cover here, so I definitely have to make some more cake involving that soon.

For the time being, though, I wish you a lovely day and … if you feel like it … share some of your Star Wars Day creations in below in the comment section.

Otherwise, have a delicious Salted Caramel cake …

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Beware of the Dark Side ... Raspberry Chocolate Tart

"Is the dark side stronger?" "No! No ... no. Quicker. Easier. More seductive."

A long long time ago in a kitchen far far away ...

In fact, it wasn't so long ago and not far far away. Well, the kitchen might be just around the corner, but still ... you have to beware of the dark side, for it is very seductive ... eh ... this raspberry chocolate cake is very seductive and if you don't beware and have more pieces of it than you reasonably should, you can imagine what can happen.

Well, I show you anyway ...

This Raspberry chocolate tart is based on a recipe from Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie.

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

150 g butter

100 g sugar

A pinch of salt

250 g flour

1 egg

30 g cocoa powder

For the filling:

100 ml full fat milk

400 ml cream

250 g dark chocolate

2 eggs

... and raspberries

Method:

First of all, we go for the pastry, naturally, for it has to rest in the fridge for at least an hour. So, cream together the butter and the sugar. Then add the pinch of salt, flour, egg and cocoa powder. Carefully bring all the ingredients together to form the dough.

After the hour, get the pastry into a greased loose-bottomed tart tin (you knew that would be coming one day again). Blind bake the pastry for 12 minutes at 180 ºC.

Now you can already prepare the filling. Add the milk, cream and sugar to a suitable sized pot and carefully bring to the boil. Stir once in a while. Then take the pot from the heat and add the chocolate. Stir it until the chocolate has melted away and you have a smooth mixture. Then whisk in the eggs one by one.

Pour the filling onto the blind baked pastry case and get it back into the oven at 170 ºC for 15 minutes. After that leave the raspberry chocolate tart some time to cool. Wait? Why raspberry chocolate tart? Fine, after a while, place the raspberries on top of the tart, pushing them into the chocolate filling. Use as many raspberries as you wish. Are you satisfied now?

When you go for it, you can even add a dollop of whipped cream, crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream., but ... beware of the dark side ... and May the 4th be with you ...

Now I have added this post also to Bake of the Week at Casa Costello.

While we still have time for thing, it's good as well to add this to May's Calendar Cakes, which is being hosted by Rachel at Dolly Bakes.

It's useless to resist - Double Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ...

... "It's useless to resist." ...

... "I am your father!" ...

... "No, no, that's not true. That's impossible!"

CUT! CUT!

Let's start over: A few weeks ago in a small, normal kitchen ... It's useless to resist. No, not the dark side. No, rather the dark chocolate of those Double Chocolate Macadamia Cookies. I'm your cookie. Yes, it is true, it is possible. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Just have a look at the list of ingredients first and you will see ...

Ingredients (get them and join):

200 g icing sugar

200 g butter

25 g cocoa powder

60 g macadamia nuts, chopped up

300 g flour

100 g dark chocolate, broken or cut into chunks

Method (no tricks, no nonsense):

Carefully melt the butter in a large saucepan. Then take it from the heat and stir in the sugar and the cocoa powder.

Add the macadamia nuts and incorporate them as well.

It's time for the flour then. Sift it in if you like or ... just go for it.

Finally give in to your feelings and use the chocolate chunk to make the cookie dough complete.

Did I say finally? Well, must have been for the cookie dough. 

Almost there! 

We only need to put small pieces of the dough on baking trays that have baking parchment on them and then put the whole lots of them into the oven for 15 minutes at 180 °C.

After a bit of cooling down ... for the cookies ... but if preparing them was too much hard work for you, you might cool down as well.

Said and done! Now it's useless to resist those lovely Double Chocolate Macadamia Cookies.

On the other hand you might reconsider your strategy. While Wookies might pull out the arms of innocent droids when they loose, you might let the cookies win anyway, but they might change something in connection with your body, if you eat them all at once on your own ... Don't ask!

Well, as far as I can see it, it's May the 4th. Does this have anything to do with Star Wars? Or with cookies? 

Don't have a bad feeling about this. Remember, if you go and make those cookies now, the 4th will be with you ... always!

Alternatively, you can put the cookies into your cookie jar and eat responsible. Well, this month's Tea Time Treats from Lavender and Lovage and What Kate Baked is about that Eh, not necessarily about eating responsibly - we are doing that anyway ... most of the time - but the theme is rather: The Biscuit Tin and Cookie Jar! Biscuits and Cookies. So for sure you find also some alternatives as to cookies at Lavender and Lovage, who is hosting Tea Time Treats this very month.

So ... have a look around and join forces for that ...