CARAMEL TOPPED SEMOLINA CAKE@THANKSGIVING@DORIE@AMFT

 I love stories, specially real stories, stories that bring a smile to ur face and glee to ur heart !

And if the story , is woven around food , its all the better!!

And around dessert, well i am all hugs and u'll have me donuts!

 I love love love the story behind recipes @ Around My French Table, DOrie rocks yeah ,in every way!!

And this delicious story goes to French Fridays with Dorie ,started by Laurie here ! 

Hop by not only to catch all the deliciousness but join in too!

 I love how her better half ,Michael and Dorie discovered this one!!

Her narration takes me to the Picturesque,often pictured {ofcourse}, Place Dauphine, in Paris ,at the tiny bistro, where they first had this and how she went on to master this one!!

 I say master coz its absolutely fool proof, we find no cream of wheat nor farina here ,so i baked it with semolina and it was perfect!!

 So i actually lived up to the name of this recipe!

Absolutely delicious and didn last even a day @ our non dessert eatin family , me being the lone dessert eater at most times!!

 It reminds of goan sweets , lods of goodies with the portuguese influence, have semolina in them and i totally love them!

And this Cake reminds me of all those goodies + Pudim De Caramel, i ahve seen and helped mommy making caramel many a times !

 The caramel was awesome and had a delicious lemony tang to it!

 Even better , was when the next morning, my sweetest bro, who doesnt fancy desserts too muc, was looking for the lone star that was left, was so sorry that i had polished it off and he was actually eyeing it after breakfast and didn wanna over stuff himself!

Well lets begin this absolutely delicious dessert,shall we, its absolutely easy to put together!

 To begin with ,u need to center a rack in the oven and preheat to 350 degress, do this , u have to, and keep a 8inch tin at hand or mini little ones and more as i did!!

Ok ,now lets begin with the milk, u need to bring 2Cups Milk to a boil with 1/4tsp salt .

And coz its around thanksgiving and coz spice and all things nice are so in now ,i love them in my kitchen , i added cloves , cinnamon and cardomon to the milk ,while warming!

The aroma ,fantastic!

 And to make all things better , i added a whole vanilla bean too, hah look at those pretty tiny black babies!So good!

 And a Dash of something else too, yeah a Dash of something from Provence....u have to guesss....

 Yeah ur rite,lavendor, gorgeous lavendor buds , coz they are sooo goood!

 Now ,forgive me my tendency to think that Lavender is so French , these buds come from Provence too!

Now this is the semolina i used ,u get a finer one too but i picked it from a grocery store and didn realize to ask for that too,but this one worked super fine,13rd cup of it, i dry roasted it a bit , till the raw flavor disappeared and then have to add it to the milk , thats brought to a boil , and the semolina added at the sign of the first bubble!!

Cooked it on low heat, stirring constantly so that it doesnt scorch!

Now if ur using cream of wheat/farina, u'll have to check the cereal box of details!

When its well cooked and nice take off the flame to cool , remember it thickens a bit later.

 By the way i added lite cream and dry milk to the milk i used coz the recipe calls for whole milk and all i had was skimmed/toned milk!Worked pretty well!

 And while the Farina/semolina cooled ,i simply couldn resist zesting in some lime there!

 And now to begin making the caramel, in a saucepan ,u need 1/3rd cup sugar, 3 tbh water and fresh lemon juice!! I added some lemon zest too!

 Use the zested limes/lemons to squeeze the juice , this ,makes for some absolutely ,lovely lemony caramel that jus has that zing!

Now before u begin making the caramel , do slide the pan/molds placed on a lined tray, into the oven!

This is a terrific tip , the warm pans ,make it so muc easier to spread the caramel ,specially since i was using many small molds and the caramel sets pretty fast!

I tried gettn pics of the caramel making but they are so good, u'll find better pics here!Actually these are the time ,i made this for Pudim de caramelo and they are shot with a cell phone:-)

Now u need to bring the sugar ,water lemon to a boil over high heat , after giving the saucepan a few nice swirls to moisten the sugar!

As the sugar begins to take a caramello color ,swirl a few times for even browning and heating!

 And when its nice and a deep amber, pour into prepared molds/mold!

The now warm molds ,make ur moments here smooth and lets u gaze at the pretty caramel that has all those bits of zest in there!

 Now though i did halve the basic recipe, i didn halve the caramel and still needed more , that means i f i make the full recipe as above , i will need to double the 1/3 rd cup sugar and water , and i  love lods of caramel~Specially if its pretty~

Now after the caramel pans are ready, u need to beat in 2 eggs into the cooled Farina/semolina and add some chopped dry fruit!

Raisins are a first choice but i added Apricots , 2types , chopped!

 One tangy and one sweet!

Ok known my love for playing around i couldn help adding a few chips ,chocolate {milk} and butterscotch to 2 of the molds!

 Bake till everything puffs around and u have some mini caramel spurts around!Unmold while warm so u get all the caramel around!

Oh ,so lovely, the flavors hit the rite spot, in every bite{or gobble}

Bro, i sure wanna bake u lods of these stars soooonn..

Pretty ,pretty caramel, yeah thats what i got at the base of the flower mold, and it got curled ,around my fingers into a pretty pattern!

Am sending this Caramel topped cake with Apricots {apricot is a fruit aint it:-) } to the lovely host of this months Monthly Mingle, Deeba of Passionate about Baking , a truly delightfull blog filled with gorgeous bakes, and am delighted that this months theme is fruits, and fruity delights! Monthly Mingle was started by Meeta ,of another fantastic blog, What for Lunch Honey