Chocolate & Salted Caramel Birthday Cake

Last week was my little brother’s 14th birthday (he will always be little to me, even when he surpasses me in height!). His first birthday away from the rest of us, he spent the weekend with a friend in Whangamata in the waves, without the traditional morning birthday presents and lavish cake on the day. Luckily for him, I was not about to miss a chance to make said lavish cake – a perfect reason to use quantities of butter, sugar and cream that I can’t ordinarily justify, due to both the expense and my waistline! What resulted was a double layer chocolate and salted caramel cake, a gorgeous tower of silky, dark brown ganache and asymmetric caramel drips.
What surprised me was how easy this cake was to put together. Of course, you couldn’t suddenly decide to make it for dessert at four o’clock in the afternoon, but with a wee bit of planning it wasn’t too tricky. I made the two 20cm cakes in the morning to allow them time to cool, put together the caramel and chocolate ganache after lunch, and then constructed it right before dinner. Spacing out the components of a cake like this makes it seem far less overwhelming and time-consuming, ensuring you never get too frazzled and the kitchen never quite makes it to a state of extreme I-can’t-deal-with-this mess.
The cake recipe itself is a winner – a Chocolate Zucchini (!) cake from the Little and Friday Celebration’s cookbook. I didn’t want to tell my brothers about the zucchini component of the cake beforehand, concerned that they might be put off and spend time trying to identify hidden bits of zucchini in their dessert. They did find out, but my fears proved to be unfounded: the cake was totally demolished and the zucchini only served to add moisture to the finished product. The original recipe called for two x 18cm cake tins, but as I didn’t own any, did not see any reason to buy them for the sake of one cake, and thought the recipe looked pretty big anyway, I went with my 20cm tins and it turned out perfectly. You could easily use your favourite chocolate cake recipe for two x 20cm cakes here.

The salted caramel recipe I took from a blog called Matkonation, and despite my worries that either the caramel would burn or I would burn myself, it was very successful and a recipe I would recommend. I had extra left over after I constructed the cake, so drizzled more over each slice as I served it. If you find it gets too thick as it cools, especially if you leave it in the refrigerator, you can warm it up either in a pot or in the microwave to thin it out.

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Chocolate & Salted Caramel Birthday Cake

Prep Time

2 hrs 30 mins

Cook Time

30 mins

Total Time

3 hrs

 

A heavenly double layer chocolate cake sandwiched with smooth chocolate ganache and salted caramel, this is an extravagant and indulgent cake for your next special occasion. Adapted from Little and Friday and Matkonation (links in text above).

Course: Dessert

Servings: 12 -18 (depending on hunger!)

Author: Claudia Brick

Ingredients

Chocolate Cake

• 180 g dark chocolate , broken into pieces
• 50 g dark chocolate drops or small chunks
• 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 4 large eggs
• 2 cups caster sugar
• 300 ml canola oil
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 50 ml strong coffee (I used a double shot of espresso from our coffee machine)
• 2 cups finely grated zucchini
• 100 ml cream

Salted Caramel

• 1/2 cup (125ml) cream
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon glucose syrup (can be found in supermarkets)
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons butter , softened
• ½ tsp salt (or according to your tastes)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons sea salt flakes

Ganache

• 400 g good quality dark chocolate (I use Whittakers)
• 1 cup (250ml) cream

Instructions

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

1. Grease and line base and sides of 2 x 20cm round tins with baking paper. Preheat oven to 175°.
2. Melt chocolate in a bowl sitting over saucepan filled with 2cm of water. The water should be simmering and should not touch the bottom of the bowl. Set aside to cool.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer or using electric beaters, whisk eggs and sugar until tripled in volume, pale and creamy. It should hold a shape when the beaters go through it.
4. Slowly drizzle in oil with mixer going to combine. Add melted chocolate, vanilla and coffee, whisking just to combine.
5. Sift in flour, cocoa and baking powder and fold into mixture using a large spatula. Fold through grated zucchini, chocolate drops and cream.
6. Divide evenly between prepared tins and bake for 35min or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in tins.

Salted Caramel

1. Gently heat the cream in a small pot over a very low heat to warm it up. It shouldn't boil.
2. Place the sugar, glucose syrup and water in a large pot over a medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Stop stirring, increase the heat and allow to boil, swirling the mixture occasionally so it cooks evenly for 5-10min, until it reaches a dark amber caramel colour. This happens very quickly near the end, so watch carefully. This is about 175°C on a candy thermometer.
3. Remove immediately from heat, pour the warm cream into the caramel and whisk vigorously. It will boil up around your whisk, but keep going until it subsides and is smooth and creamy. Add 1/2 tsp salt, butter and vanilla extract and continue to whisk until smooth.
4. Pour into a glass container and allow to cool to room temperature before closing.

Ganache

1. Chop chocolate very finely and place in a medium bowl.
2. In a small pot, heat cream gently until it is almost boiling, but not quite. Pour the cream over the chocolate in the bowl, making sure that all the chocolate is submerged. Leave for 5 min.
3. Stir with a fork until the ganache is smooth and fully combined. Leave to cool and thicken before using (usually about three hours). Do not refrigerate as it will quickly harden and be near impossible to resurrect.

Assembly

1. If your cakes have formed a rounded top during baking, use a serrated knife to flatten the top. This didn't happen when I made them though.
2. Place one of the cakes on the plate or cake stand you want to serve it on. To reduce drips onto the stand, you can slide strips of baking paper around the edges of the cake - once your are finished decorating, just slide the chocolate and caramel splattered paper out (I forgot to do this - see photos above!).
3. Dollop a couple of large spoonfuls of ganache onto the first cake and spread to the edges.You want a good thick layer.
4. Using a spoon, drizzle caramel over the ganache. If it has thickened too much, heat it in the microwave for 20 seconds or in a bowl over a pot of simmering water to thin it out. Top with sea salt flakes.
5. Top with the second cake. Spread top and sides with a thick layer of ganache - I find a small offset palette knife is perfect for this. Drizzle more caramel over in any pattern you wish, letting it drip over the edges. Top with a few flakes of sea salt.
6. Serve with your choice of cream, ice-cream, or a sharp natural yogurt.