Daim and Caramel Cream Dessert (with toffee cookies)
This Daim and caramel cream dessert is simple and quick. With toffee cookies, Daim bar, caramel and cream, it’s a decadent dessert for all occasions.
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If I am honest, this would have been a Daim cheesecake. Thing is, my 16 year old hates cream cheese. When he was younger, I could disguise it (or, okay, outright lie about it) when I used it in desserts, but now, he’s immediately suspicious of anything white. I mean in desserts, not the colour. He doesn’t freak out if someone walks past with a white tee-shirt on. Four times I had to tell him the ingredients before he would eat it. It’s a good job I love him.
The title of this Daim and caramel cream dessert (with toffee cookies) explains all you need to know. There’s luscious Daim bar, homemade, super-simple caramel, crunched up toffee biscuits and lashings of cream. You can make your own cookies, but it’s not necessary. Other than that, the hardest thing you have to do is throw it all together.
What is a Daim bar?
Daim is one of Sweden’s most loved bars of chocolate. Teeth-shatteringly crunchy almond caramel is encased in a thick layer of milk chocolate. Production of Daim first began in the 1950s by Marabou after some of their big-wigs went to the US to ask for the recipe for Heath bar. They were not given the exact measurements, but were told the ingredients, and they set to work on creating Daim.
The original spelling was Dajm, and when launched in the UK in the 80s, the Scandinavian name was anglicised to Dime. After a rebranding in 2005, and to unify the product in Europe, the current spelling of Daim was introduced. Apparently, the pronunciation is supposed to be dame but I am pretty sure everyone still says dime (well, I do, anyway).
What can you substitute for Daim?
As mentioned above, Heath bar looks to be a very similar product. Another possible option seems to be Skor. However, I haven’t personally tried either of them, so can’t vouch for this. For this particular recipe, you could replace Daim with absolutely any chocolate bar you like. As long as you can crush it up, it doesn’t matter what you use.
What about the toffee cookies?
I specifically used my Swedish toffee cookies (below) because I wanted something to complement the buttery caramel in the Daim.
However, you absolutely do not need to bake up a batch of cookies just for this dessert, especially if it’s something you want to bring together quickly. You could use whatever cookies you fancy, but something like Biscoff or any kind of crunchy caramel cookies would work like a dream.
Do I have to make my own caramel?
The caramel in this dessert is very simple to make. I first used it for my apple and blueberry smulpaj and loved it. There’s no need for candy thermometers or constant stirring until your hands turn numb. However, if you don’t want to go to the trouble of making some, you can easily melt caramel candies or use tinned dulce de leche instead.
Daim and Caramel Cream Dessert
Ingredients
Toffee Cookies (see note 1):
- 40g (¼ cup) sugar
- 50g (3 tbsp + 2 tsp) butter (softened)
- ½ tbs syrup (golden or light)
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- 70g (⅓ cup + 2 tbs) spelt flour (see note 2)
Caramel (see note 3):
- 50g (¼ cup) Demerara sugar (see note 4)
- 30g (⅛ cup) butter
- 1 tbs whipping cream
Other ingredients:
- 300ml (1¼ cups) whipping cream
- 250g (9 oz) Daim bars (see note 5)
- Berries for decoration (optional)
Instructions
Toffee Cookies (see note 1):
- Pre-heat the oven to 175°C (350ºF) and line a baking tray with grease-proof paper.
- Beat the butter and sugar together until nice and fluffy and then beat in the syrup.
- Sift the flour, cinnamon and baking powder together and then stir into the butter/sugar mixture. You should be left with a dough that comes together easily and can be rolled out, although it will be a little on the sticky side.
- Roll the dough out into a fairly long rectangular shape, around 25cm long and 14cm across. It will probably find it easier to roll the dough out on the grease-proof paper and then transfer to the baking tray (the thinner the dough, the crunchier the cookie).
- Bake for around 10 minutes until the cookies are a golden brown colour (slightly darker at the edges). Do not overbake!
- Remove from the oven and immediately cut them diagonally into strips. The cookies will be soft but slightly crumbly, so cut gently (do not leave them to cool before cutting).
- Allow the cookies to cool completely and then put three aside to use as decoration. For the remaining cookies, blitz them in a food processor until they are fairly fine crumbs. Put to one side.
Caramel:
- Add all three ingredients to a pan and heat until the mixture boils and the colour slightly darkens (around 3-4 minutes).
- Remove from the heat and allow to cool (and thicken slightly).
Other ingredients:
- Whip the cream.
- Blitz the Daim bars in a food processor. Remove ¾ of the crumbs and stir into the whipped cream. Put the remaining ¼ in the freezer for around 30 minutes.
Assembly:
- Take around ¾ of the cookie crumbs and share between three glasses or bowls. Set the remaining ¼ to one side.
- Top with the whipped cream and Daim mixture (share as equally as you can between the three desserts).
- Pour over the caramel (again, equally sharing between the three desserts).
- Take the Daim crumbs from the freezer and sprinkle over the desserts.
- Take the remaining cookie crumbs, and sprinkle over the top.
- Finish off by sticking the three whole cookies you kept back into the three desserts (one per dessert), and if you like, top with a couple of berries. Enjoy!
Notes
- You don't need to make your own cookies. Because there is no exact measurement needed, just use around 8-12 cookies (depending on size).
- You can substitute regular flour for spelt flour.
- You don't need to make your own caramel. Melt some candies or use tinned caramel (dulce de leche).
- You can use any kind of brown sugar.
- You can replace Daim with Heath or Skor. Alternatively, use any chocolate bar you like (refer back to the main post for more info).