Brother: I need a cake.
Me: What kind of cake?
Brother: Any kind, maybe a Victoria Sponge
Me: I can do that.
Well I don’t think he was expecting something like this. I wanted to do something that spoke to me and was true of who I was. I have been liking salted caramel since my Rolo Loaf Cake so I knew I wanted to follow that on.
I decided I would see how hard it was to make salted caramel sauce from scratch and it was actually super easy and tasted amazing.
I used 6inch tins for this cake but you could do it in 8inch tins if you want a bigger cake, I am still learning to decorate big cakes so I like doing 6 inch cakes at the moment.
I froze my sponges after they were baked until I was ready to decorate them. Normally I would get them out to defrost a bit before hand but I didn’t this time as I had seen that you should decorate them while they are still frozen to avoid crumbs in the buttercream. It worked.
There is still some learning on this cake for me i.e. the drip but I still super pleased with how it turned out and my brother really loved it.
Chocolate and Salted Caramel Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 200 g Caster Sugar
- 200 g Butter
- 200 g Self-raising Flour
- 4 tbsp cocoa powder
- 5 Eggs
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
Salted Caramel Sauce
- 200 g Granulated Sugar
- 90 g Unsalted Butter
- 120 ml Double Cream
- 1 tsp Salt
Chocolate American Buttercream
- 290 g Unsalted Butter
- 65 g Cocoa Powder
- 5 tbsp Double Cream
- 420 g Icing Sugar
Decoration
- 4 packets Rolos
- 1 bag Caramel Nibbles
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease and line two 6in sandwich tins.
- Cream the sugar and butter together in a bowl until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in the eggs, one at a time, until well combined.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into the mixture and fold until well combined.
- Divide the cake batter between the two sandwich tins and bake for 35 - 45 minutes, or until cooked through.
Salted Caramel Sauce
- Heat granulated sugar in a medium heavy-duty saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly with a high heat resistant rubber spatula or wooden spoon.
- Once sugar is completely melted, immediately stir in the butter until melted and combined.
- After the butter has melted and combined with the caramelized sugar, cook for 1 minute without stirring. Very slowly stir in 1/2 cup of double cream.
- After all the double cream has been added, stop stirring and allow to boil for 1 minute. It will rise in the pan as it boils. Remove from heat and stir in the salt. Allow to slightly cool down before using. Caramel thickens as it cools.
Chocolate American Buttercream
- Beat the butter until creamy and pale in colour.
- Add the icing sugar, cocoa powder, the double cream. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds, then increase to high speed and beat for 1 full minute.*
Decoration
- Slice the sponges in half so you have 4 sponges. Stick one sponge to a cake board then top that sponge with a layer of buttercream and fill with some salted caramel sauce. Top the filled sponge with the next sponge and repeat until your cake is assembled.
- Pipe buttercream all the way around the cake to crumb coat it then put in the fridge for an hour. Then add more buttercream and cover the entire cake again.
- On the top of the cake, add some salted caramel sauce then using a palette knife spread the sauce all around the top until it starts dripping down the sides. Return to the fridge until your ready to finish decorating.
- Pipe some buttercream to the top of the cake and add the rolos and caramel buttons on top.
