Filbert genoise, praline paste, praline butter cream frosting, sugar syrup, apricot glaze, and a ganache! Phew!! Those were all the components to this months Daring Baker challenge.

I must say It all got off to a pretty good start, I mean my cake itself (the genoise), came together perfectly, it rose nice and I was able to get 3 layers evenly cut.

I think the problem started here, although it doesn’t look that bad, I think I overcooked the sugar which turned into a bitter tasting caramel.

I had no problem with this either, It looks pretty good doesn’t it?

Little did I know at the time that the bitterness of the caramel was going to affect the whole flavor of the cake!

Unfortunately that’s what happened, the whole cake had a bitter taste to it, even my Hubby who has a enormous sweet tooth couldn’t even finish his one piece, believe me, he wanted it to be good!!

So needless to say I was very glad that I halved the recipe. I used a 6×3″ pan, and stuck pretty much to the flavorings.

Oh, and my ganache, well that’s another story, I definitely need help in that department!

Mine never got thick enough it turned out more like a glaze, I probably should have added more chocolate to it, but I wanted to get it done as I was starting to lose day light.

I tried to cover a multitude of sins with my “fancy scroll work,” lol, which I did “Sandra Lee” style, by filling a zip lock bag with the frosting and then snipping the corner like a pastry bag.

Hey, you win some and you lose some! I don’t think “fancy cakes” are my forte’, but that’s what being a Daring Baker is all about, I definitely challenged myself! You should have seen my totaled kitchen, that would have been a great photo! lol

I want to thank our dear host this month Chris, over at Mele Cotte, go over there and you can check out the whole recipe. It was 5 pages long when I printed it out.

And don’t forget to check out the other Daring Bakers cakes, I’m sure there are some gorgeous ones out there!!