This cake is a joke. It's bonkers, it's outrageous, it's audacious, it's a Bruce Bogtrotter cake. It's also pretty yummy and easier than it looks. So if you want to make a cake that could beat up every other cake with one little iced finger, read on.
INGREDIENTS
For chocolate sponge:
125g self-raising flour, replace 2 tablespoons of the flour with 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
125g caster sugar
125g butter
2 eggs
1tsp baking powder
2 tbsp milk
For the coffee sponge:
125g self-raising flour
125g caster sugar
125g butter
2 eggs
1tsp baking powder
50ml strong fresh brewed coffee
For salted caramel sponge:
125g self-raising flour
125g caster sugar
125g butter
2 eggs
1tsp baking powder
2tbsp milk
some of the salted caramel sauce
For salted caramel sauce:
200g brown sugar
50g butter
150 ml double cream
sea salt
50g butter
150 ml double cream
sea salt
For chocolate icing:
100g butter
300g icing sugar
40g cocoa powder
40ml milk
For coffee icing:
100g butter
300g icing sugar
30ml strong fresh brewed coffee
For salted caramel icing:
600g icing sugar
200g butter
150mls salted caramel sauce
200g butter
150mls salted caramel sauce
No but I promise it's really easy! Don't look at me like that. (Also to make life easier maybe have three 20cm round baking dishes).
METHOD
Make the sponges, I recommend making separate mixtures to stop your brain from frying. I did chocolate first.
Set your oven to 180 degrees centigrade, or 150 if you're using a fan oven. Beat together the butter and sugar till very creamy, then add the eggs one by one. Add a tablespoon of the flour/cocoa mixture as well to stop the eggs from curdling. Sift in the remaining flour/cocoa and add the baking powder, then add the milk. Stir it all together gently with a metal spoon or spatula in a figure eight. Grease and line a 20cm round baking dish and pour the mixture into it, then smooth it so it's flat. Bake in the oven for at least 25 minutes, until the sponge jumps back when you press a finger onto it. Mine took almost 50 minutes because it was my first time with this oven and also I have a fear of under baking sponges - forget food poisoning, they collapse!
Do the same method for the coffee and salted caramel sponges, only using no cocoa powder, and coffee instead of milk for the coffee sponge. Keep your wits about you when it comes to the timing of the bakes. I made the coffee and chocolate mixtures and baked them together, then put the salted caramel mixture into the oven halfway through.
Make the salted caramel sauce.
Melt the butter in a heavy bottom pan over a moderate heat, add the sugar and cook until the sugar starts boiling and bubbling up like honeycomb. Take it off the heat and add the cream bit by bit, whisking constantly to avoid crystals and lumps. Season with as much sea salt as tastes right to you. In my case, a lot.
When the sponges are all cooked, remove from oven. I then made small holes in the top of the salted caramel cake and poured some of the sauce over it. Yeah.
Make the icing.
Again, I made them separately. Just beat the butter and icing sugar or icing/cocoa powder mix together with the coffee or salted caramel sauce or milk until it's completely combined.
Then when the sponges are cooled it's time to assemble the cake. You want the sponges to be as flat as possible to stop them wobbling, so I sliced a bit off the top before icing them. Ice each sponge with it's coinciding flavour, and build up the layers. I then covered the entire cake with a thin layer of salted caramel icing (hence why you make double of this) so there would be something for the other icing flavours to stick to when I was piping. This was my first time piping and I was NAT good, but I'm going to keep trying until I pipe the Mona frickin' Lisa on a gingernut. Things I've learned about piping so far:
1. Be at the same level as your cake. I had mine on the kitchen counter while I sat on a chair. Very comfortable.
2. Get the consistency of the icing right. Too runny is actually better than too stiff when it comes to squeezing. That sounds weird.
3. Practice on a bit of greaseproof paper first.
4. Fill in gaps with squirts of excess icing.
5. Tell everyone you meant to do weird curly shells, and close the YouTube tutorial on "How To Pipe Roses" as soon as possible.
So you pipe the chocolate icing first, then the coffee, then the salted caramel. It's easy.
So you pipe the chocolate icing first, then the coffee, then the salted caramel. It's easy.
That's it! I also made some dark chocolate shapes for the top because I'm an overgrown woman child.
