The Danger is INCREASING!

So I know I just told you about my newest girl crush, Ms. Laura Calder of French Food at Home fame. Please see previous post. (you'd think that all I do is watch the food network! But I've been really busy, really!)

Well her stock has increased EXPONENTIALLY since I made her caramel sauce.

In 6 minutes.


Why I feel the need to torment myself by knowing how to make it whenever I want is beyond me right now. And not only that but it's SO EASY.

Danger Danger Mrs. Stevenson.

Danger Danger.

If you want to make it yourself here is how you do it.
(I halved the recipe because I actually had to make it three times before it worked.)

1/2 cup white sugar
2-3 T water
5 T butter (I used Natures Balance Buttery Spread. It's wonderful stuff)
1 T cream (again I used a non dairy equivalent)

On high heat in a suacepan, boil your sugar and water until it's JUST GOLDEN.
This is the key here, I let it get too golden the first time and by the time the butter and the cream went in it was bitter and burnt and gross.

Remove from the heat and let it sit for like 30 seconds or something, just to bring it down a bit.

Stir in the butter. It will sizzle and fizz. I take this as a normal part of making caramel sauce.

Stir in the cream.

THAT'S IT.

It's really hot (like burn your mouth off hot) so remember to let it cool a bit before you start shoving it into your mouth with a spoon.

I made it last night to go with baked apples (again thank you Laura Calder!) and we were both immediately in raptures over it and instantly regretting eating caramel sauce late at night.

Because it's really just sugar/butter.

Super delicious sugar/butter.

(the first time I had the heat set too low and I watched as sugar water miraculously boiled down and turned BACK INTO SUGAR. The second time I burnt it. But the third time? Oh baby, the third time was the charm!)

Chocolate Cake for breakfast

Last night I tried out a new recipe.

I can't show you pictures of what it originally looked like because it's already almost gone. I am currently finishing the last piece for second breakfast.

But it's g o o o d.

I changed the recipe a little bit to omit the sugar.

Good Sense Brownies
(adapted from a Homemakers magazine recipe)

-Melt 1/4 cup margerine or butter with 2 squares of bittersweet (or semisweet) bakers chocolate in a sauce pan over medium heat.

-Stir in 1/2 to 3/4 cup brown rice syrup. (the original recipe called for 3/4 cup granulated sugar, but we are off the sweet stuff and I had the rice syrup on hand, I bet agave or honey would work too.)

-Stir in 1 beaten egg and 1 tspn vanilla (I used cinnamon because we are out of vanilla at the moment)

-Add 1/2 cup flour (we used Bob's Red Mill gluten free mix), 1/2 cup cooked and mashed sweet potato, 2 tbspns cocoa powder, 1 tspn baking powder an 1/4 tspn salt
Mix this all together until just combined.

-stir in 1/2 cup chopped walnuts.

Spread into a lightly greased 8" cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 until a toothpick comes out mostly clean.

This is SO MOIST, and super rich. It's almost like a flourless torte or fudge or something. I am thankful that it only makes a small cake because holy shit, I have eaten most of this thing in the last 10 hours and I would keep eating it if it were larger.

Which would be bad.

I am going to have to eat salad for the rest of the weekend as it is just to balance out breakfast.