By Nicole Hunn | Published: | Posted In: Cakes, Desserts, Frosting/Icing
Are we done with all the healthy New Year's Resolutions yet? What a bore. A balanced life is a happy one. I eat kale by the truckload. Can I have some cake now?
And, anyway, my husband is turning 40 in, like, two shakes. He's Philadelphia born and raised, and he needs some Schmastykake Butterscotch Krimpets. ‘Cause Tastykake won't make 'em for us. What do they expect me to do?
Can you see my recipe development notes underneath the bowl of dry ingredients? You sure you want to peek around that particular corner and talk about recipe development? It's a mess down there. Inside my head.
You'll whisk together the dry ingredients, then mix in most of the wet (see the printable recipe for all the details) and set the batter aside. Clean out the mixing bowl so there remain not a trace of fat (or the egg whites won't form peaks), and beat the 4 egg whites with the whisk until they form stiff, but not dry, peaks form. Like this.
You'll want to bake the cake until it is golden brown all over, especially along the edges and underside. As it cools, it will deflate a bit.
To make the icing, you'll first need to make a batch of this easy butterscotch recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Trust this one. I first made a batch using the recipe from another blog and it was written by some fancy schmancy chef-type, and the proportions were way off. The sauce seized up and was tot-ally useless. I threw a few well-placed expletives in the direction of that fancypants internet source, tossed the mess and turned to this easy recipe. Sweet success within mere minutes.
Glory be.
Now there are a number of non-GF recipes for butterscotch krimpet clones floating around on the interwebs. They all use butterscotch chips for the icing. That won't do. Chips are waxy. That's how they stay individually chippy. No gracias.
It only takes a few minutes to blend butter and confectioner's sugar with some real butterscotch sauce (which itself takes mere minutes to create), and the result is just the right icing. The kind that feels like it might very well peel right off the pastry if you tugged on it, but instead you bite through it and leave little toothy train tracks behind.
Pour the icing on top of the cooled cake, and spread it with a small offset spatula
. If you don't have one, you can use a wide knife, but it would be so much easier if you just got one. I might even consider it a personal favor. They're not expensive and they're super duper useful.
Then chill the iced cake until the icing is set and dry to a light touch. All that's left, then, is to slice it into 9 rectangles and make half-moon cutouts in the sides if you like.
Do me a solid & read through the entire printable recipe before you begin, wouldya? You'll see how it all works. I promise.
| Butterscotch Krimpets! |
Recipe Type: Krimpets!
Author: Nicole @ Gluten-free on a Shoestring.com
Prep time: 1 hour
Cook time: 30 mins
Total time: 1 hour 30 mins
Serves: 9
Gluten-free Butterscotch Krimpet Clones
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour (I use Better Batter)
- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if using Better Batter)
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- 2 sticks (16 tablespoons) (224g) unsalted butter at room temperature, divided
- 1 cup milk (low-fat is fine, nonfat is not, nondairy is fine), at room temperature
- 4 extra-large egg whites and 2 egg yolks, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 1/2 cups (173g) confectioner's sugar
- 1 recipe Smitten Kitchen easy butterscotch sauce (http://bit.ly/8iSeoH)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F. Butter a 9 x 12 inch (or slightly smaller) rectangular pan. Even if your pan is reliably nonstick, butter it, and then set the pan aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, place the flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, baking soda, salt and granulated sugar and whisk to combine well. Add 1 stick (8 tablespoons; 112g) unsalted butter, milk, egg yolks, vanilla extract and almond extract to the dry ingredients, blending well after each addition. Transfer the batter to a separate large bowl and wash out the bowl of your mixer well, making sure no fat remains in the bowl. Beat the 4 egg whites in the stand mixer with the whisk attachment on high speed until stiff but not dry peaks form (see photo). Scoop half of the egg whites into the bowl of batter, and gently fold in the egg whites until just a few streaks of white remain. Add the rest of the egg whites, and fold again until no white streaks remain. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and shake it gently to create an layer of batter.
- Place the pan in the center of the preheated oven and bake, rotating the pan once during baking, for about 30 minutes or until the cake is nicely puffed and pretty uniformly golden brown (see photo) and the cake has begun to pull away from the sides of the pan. Allow the cake to cool for 5 minutes in the pan before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- To the bowl of the stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the remaining 1 stick (8 tablespoons; 112g) unsalted butter and the confectioner's sugar, and mix on high speed until well combined. Lower the mixer speed to low, and drizzle in 4 tablespoons of the butterscotch sauce. Add more sauce by the tablespoon until the mixture is very light brown in color (not yellow – more like a khaki color) and smells and tastes of butterscotch. Take care not to add too much butterscotch in search of a very butterscotch-flavored icing or you will thin the icing too much. You want it to be thickly pourable icing — not fluffy frosting and not a thin liquid. This part is key to the authenticity of your krimpets. Refrigerate the rest of the butterscotch sauce in an airtight container.
- With the cooled cake still on the rack, place a piece of parchment paper underneath and pour most of the icing in the center. With a small offset spatula, slowly and carefully spread the icing thickly over the top of the cake. Refrigerate until the icing has set and is nearly dry to the touch.
- With a very sharp chef's knife, slice the cake into 9 rectangular pieces. To achieve the traditional zigzag pattern, on each long side of the rectangles, gently use a small cookie cutter to cut two half moons.
- Serve just slightly more chilly than room temperature.
Notes
I would not suggest making ANY substitutions in this if you can avoid it, as the end product will not turn out the same and you will be disappointed.
Try to follow the recipe to the letter before taking any liberties.
