Monday 15 October 2012

Chocolate Caramel Layer Cake


I know, I'm cruel. Monday morning rolled around with the best of intentions to watch the diet this week, and I present you with this.

I can honestly say it's as good as it looks. The cake is very moist, but because there isn't icing between the layers, and the icing there is isn't sweetened with icing sugar or butter, it's very easy to enjoy a piece without feeling weighed down. Probably a bit much in terms of calories for livening up a rough afternoon at work, but a complete show stopper for Sunday tea.

Don't be daunted by this cake, it was amazingly simple to make and the moistness of the cake batter means it produces quite flat layers so no need to take a knife to them to make it stack neatly. If you have icing left over just pop it in a jar in the fridge, it reheats in the microwave in about 20-40 seconds depending on quantity, and is gorgeous as a dip for fruit or poured over ice cream.

Make for your mam's birthday, best friend's new job, a special Sunday tea, to celebrate that letter this morning telling you you're due £7.52 back in overpaid tax... just find an excuse and make this as soon as you can.


Ingredients

For the chocolate & vanilla sponge:
225g very soft butter , plus extra for greasing
225g golden caster sugar
175g self-raising flour
85g ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
150ml pot natural yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 tbsp cocoa powder

For the caramel and chocolate-caramel sponge:
225g very soft butter , plus extra for greasing
175g light muscovado sugar
50g dark muscovado sugar
175g self-raising flour
85g ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
150ml pot natural yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp cocoa

For the filling and icing:
397g can caramel (stocked near the condensed milk in stores)
140g dark chocolate
140g milk chocolate
300ml double cream

Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.

Grease and line bases of 2 x 20cm sandwich tins with baking parchment. For the Vanilla & chocolate sponges, mix all the ingredients, apart from the cocoa, together with an electric whisk. Scrape half the mix into a tin and whizz in the cocoa to the remaining batter. Scrape into the second tin and bake for 20-25 mins until a skewer poked in comes out clean.

Repeat step 1 for the Caramel & caramel-choc sponges, again leaving cocoa out of the first mixing, then splitting the mix in half and whizzing the cocoa into one batch. Cook as above.

While sponges are cooling, melt the dark and milk chocolate together in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Remove from the heat, stir in the cream and cool or chill until spreadable.


When the sponges are cool, spread a third of the caramel over the Vanilla sponge and top with the Caramel sponge. Spread over another third of the caramel and top with the Caramel-chocolate sponge, then the final third of caramel and top with the Chocolate sponge.


Spread the chocolate icing over the whole cake to serve. It will keep in a cool place in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Eat at room temperature, the fridge does no justice to this cake.


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