BAKE MY DAY: some like it hot

For this week's BAKE MY DAY* I decided to use chilis to heat things up a bit. I wanted to try to use a variety of peppers from the Capsicum genus to provide different flavors and different levels of heat.

*BAKE MY DAY is a weekly event I host where I choose an ingredient or a theme and try to make several baked goods, accordingly. It gives me a great excuse to try a lot of new things!


Spiced Apple Cake with Chili de Arbol Caramel Sauce:I started off with this Holiday Bundt Apple Cake from Dessert, Diet and Dogs. I was happy to find a recipe that was using whole grain flours and agave and brown rice syrup for most of the sweetness. Unfortunately, I didn't have barley flour, so I substituted with whole wheat flour. The only other difference was that I added 1/4 teaspoon cayenne to the apples. When I mixed up the batter, it seemed a bit dry, but I baked it anyway. Perhaps I messed up somewhere (but I really couldn't figure out how), or perhaps I just slightly overbaked the cake, but it seemed the slightest bit dry. I'm taking full responsibility for that, though, and, otherwise, it was such a lovely cake, that I still recommend it.

I only added 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne because I didn't want the cake to be too spicy (only some like it hot, and I wanted to make sure everyone could enjoy the desserts). So, I chose to put most of the spice in the caramel sauce.

For the caramel sauce, I used this recipe because I wanted to use up my maple syrup. It tasted good, but it wasn't quite like caramel. I've used another recipe in the past that looked much more like caramel, although now I can't remember what recipe that was. (Does anyone have a caramel sauce recipe that you absolutely love?) I did add 2 dried chili de arbols (stems removed, but I added the seeds), chopped into little pieces. The sauce was spicy and delicious, and poured over lightly toasted spiced walnuts, it really made the cake (and totally made up for any dryness).

Cayenne Persimmon Tart:
When I was thinking about foods that chilis would go well with, one of the first things that came to my mind was mangoes. I love a mango with a little kick. Unfortunately, the mangoes this time of year just aren't good enough to cut it, so I decided to try something with persimmons, which have a similar flavor and happen to be in season now. I found Delicious Coma's recipe for a persimmon tart and decided to give it a try.

I used cold shortening in place of the butter and added cayenne to the spices to be sprinkled on top of the persimmons. The crust turned out quite good; however, the persimmons were not so good. My persimmons weren't ripe enough (and if you've ever had an unripe persimmon, you know how bad they are). I thought they might take on a sweet flavor when baked (much like a quince), but they remained incredibly astringent. But, the tart looked lovely and it would have been great had my fruit been better (and that's the easiest thing to fix, so I'm alright with that).

Chocolate Chili Truffles & Sugar-free Truffles:
recipe here

Anaheim Lime Coconut Pie:
recipe coming soon

Poblano Almond Chocolate Cupcakes:
recipe coming soon