Failed Attempt at Chocolate Caramels

Well, it's been a while! Sorry about the late post but I've been away to Belgium for a few days and haven't really had much time to put up a post whilst unpacking and getting my GCSE results (4Cs 3Bs and 2As, but whose boasting?). Anyway, today I am putting up this blog post about a very failed attempt at a recipe I found online (Melskitchencafe.com to be exact) and basically I thought you might like to see how hard this was and how not everyone can do a recipe right the first time!!

Ok, so the recipe was from Mel's Kitchen Cafe and the lady who makes the recipe's, obviously Mel, must be American as all the ingredients were American or at least in an American measurement. So before even starting the making process I had to find alternatives for measurements and ingredients which wasn't too much of a struggle seems as we have Google *thanks the Google creators* so I was easily guided to simple British alternatives!!!

CHANGES!!
Golden syrup instead of corn syrup
Measure the temperature up to 118C instead of 245F 

If you want to do the recipe here is the link to it:  http://www.melskitchencafe.com/soft-chocolate-caramels-sugar-rush-6/

I would have written out the recipe but it would take so much time and I'm not sure whether it's copyright so... anyway I'm going to write out the alternatives to the measurements of the ingredients because they are written in cups rather than grams or ml so this could be easier if you can't find any measuring cups. The alternative measurements might not be fully accurate but they are as close as I could find.

MEASUREMENT CHANGES!!
1/2 cup of water = 118 ml
2 cups of sugar = 400g (it is actually a lot when you put it in so this sounds right)
1 cup of golden sugar = 225 ml
1 1/2 butter sticks = 170g
1 cup of dark chocolate = 168g (I put in about 1 1/2 bars of the dark cooking chocolate so about that)
there are other ingredients to add in but they didn't need channg into British measurements.

So what went wrong, I hear you ask?!
Well, the end product was stuck to the baking tray, the mixture was super super grainy. However I think it could have been because I was so impatient that I didn't wait for the mixture to bubble away to the correct temperature so it probably wasn't cooked correctly. In my defence the mixture was stuck between 107C and 108C for a good 5 minutes so I felt like it really wasn't going to get any hotter and so I thought lets just go and set this! After the recommended 2 hours of waiting for it to set, it was still runny and when touched it would remain on your finger when pulling away, so I thought lets put it in the fridge... yeah didn't set their either even after a whole night in the fridge!!

I gave up with the setting process and so I decided to try and get them out of the tray. Yeah didn't quite happen that way!! They were stuck to my greased tray and so remained on the tray. I used a spatula in the end to try and remove the debris which ended up straight in the bin!

Ok, so that is what happened when I attempted to make the caramel. I will most definitely try again as it didn't work the first time but this time I have a few different ideas I would do to try and make this work again. I have a few photos of the making process and they sort of match up to what Mel was doing in her making process so I think the end of making was where I went wrong.

The mixing of all the ingredients together over the heat.

The end product before time to set so it does look like I've not done too badly but yeah they most definitely didn't look like this when I had to scrape it straight into the bin!!

Well, that's the end of this blog! I hope you enjoyed and will even consider making these caramels. Anyway next blog I think will be about how I am making my nephew's birthday cake! It's hopefully a Star Wars (Darth Vader)/ Spiderman theme *crosses fingers* 

Thanks for reading!!
Caitlin xxx 

Baking Influences

Ok so in this blog post I thought I would talk about my baking influences and basically the reason why I love baking and why I want to become a baker one day. However I firstly wanted to thank you all for the lovely words you all had to say about my first post on here as I was very worried many of you would not like it but it has had such an amazing reception that I feel so excited and less worried to continue posting blogs every week!! So yeah THANK YOU ALL!!!!

So cracking on with the post. 

I have had so many influences to start baking but I think that my main, most poignant influence would be my Gran. She has always been the one in the family to buy the birthday cakes, make cakes and all manner of amazing desserts for as long as I can remember. So I feel she has really influenced me to start baking and enjoy seeing the happiness the things I make can bring to people. 

For years I have seen my Gran make cakes, different pies and most definitely her famous Welsh cakes (people in my family will understand how fantastic those are!!). Everything my Gran makes she always shares with everybody; her neighbours, family, the nurses she used to work with and even her hairdresser (she's bonkers, we know!!) however we obviously don't hesitate to accept any free cake going around! 

Another influence or couple of influences were from TV. I love (as many do) watching The Great British Bake Off, what a show! Anyway, I basically love watching the show and many people have said to me to go on it but right now I'm not to sure... So getting to the point, I love watching and learning from Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood and learning what the correct way to do things is because obviously baking isn't just cakes and pastries it does involve breads as well so learning form Paul and Mary (first term basis as it should be) is such an amazing way to improve as a baker.

Lorraine Pascal has really taught me so many different ways in which to rethink and re-look at baking and in a way change the way I bake different cakes and pastries. She really takes the ordinary and makes it ten times more amazing! I really look up to her because, like her, I would really like to live in France and learn the art of patisserie because it all looks so amazing, especially over in Paris where it is so popular and so brilliantly made. 

So overall I have had some amazing influences to begin baking and they are really the main reasons why I want to do baking when I am older because they make people realise how much joy baking can bring to people and also I find it is a way to freely show off your creative side which is so great! I love baking as I find it's a way to relax and free myself from any stress I might have. I usually kick my family out of the kitchen and put the TV on and just get to it. I find myself zoning out and just getting lost in the cake or whatever I might be making. I think that's why I want to become a baker as I find it so thrilling giving people my freshly baked things and seeing the happiness on their faces (especially Zach who ends up with it all over his face!!).

Anyway, so that concludes this blog post about my baking influences. My next post will most likely be a baking recipe post, I would have baked something and then done this post on that but I didn't really have time so anyway keep your eyes peeled for my new post on something chocolately!!

Thanks everyone again!!
Caitlin xxx

Introduction

Hey Guys,

I thought that I would start a blog about my life, family and my future plans of becoming a baker. I hope you enjoy this post and all my future posts. 

I think that most of my posts will consist of baking ideas, things that I have baked and things I want to bake in the future. However I will be doing posts on hauls for beauty and general things that I buy and also posts about family events such as parties and or gatherings that my family have, although they can sometimes be very rare as my family don't really have that many gatherings as everyone is super busy with work and family. Anyway off on a bit of a tangent there but oh well!

Right, onward with the first ever post for a Day Dreaming Baker!!

I feel like this post should be more about me and what the title of the blog really means, so here goes!

Ok so, I'm Caitlin and I'm about to start Sixth Form (that sounds so daunting OH WOW) but I'm looking forward to it as it should be good because I'll be with four of my best friends and I'll finally be doing subjects that I really enjoy! I'm doing Art, D.T and Business Studies, I am only taking three for over the two year course compared to the recommended four in the first year of sixth form and then dropping one subject to do three for your final year. I felt that it made more sense to only do three for both years as all three have sooo much course work and work to do for them so now I will have enough time to get the majority of my work done for them and put all my effort and hard work into the three so that my final pieces and exams  will be better and more focussed on rather than not enough work being put into them because I have one more subject to focus on.

Anyway so that's school, so on about me and my family. I grew up in Cardiff with Mum, Dad and my two brothers, James and Stuart. However as of 2011 there was another piece added to our family, my brother James and his Girlfriend had a baby boy called Zachary. I love having Zach live with us however sometimes I think the house can end in a state of chaos so they are looking for their own home. Stuart is now travelling the world so I haven't seen him properly for just over a month which has gone super fast and I miss him so much but I know that Zach misses him even more. 

The title for my blog is pretty random because I honestly couldn't think of anything (oops haha!!) but I think it's quite apt because I constantly day dream about my future of one day going to University to do baking then hopefully becoming a baker and owning my very own bakery. So yeah basically that is the title explained, it's not too great but I thought it fitted in well.

I've wanted to start this blog for absolutely ages but I felt that it would probably not be very good or I would not have enough to put in but I think that now is the right time to start because soon Summer will be ending and college will be beginning. So I will hopefully (finger crossed) be doing a bit more baking and more fun things as all my friends will finally be back from their numerous holidays so I felt that I could put blog posts up about all my baking creations, my college adventures and anything family related. 

I really hope that you all enjoyed a little insight into what I want to do with this blog and hopefully you will enjoy and read future posts mainly about my baking creations and hopefully some other fun things that I will be getting up to soon!!

Thanks again!!
Caitlin xxx