Hello Butter lovers! My name is Sarah and I've been invited to guest post here at Butter, with a Side of Bread. I'm excited to be here and particularly excited to share this cake with you all!
My daughters' preschool teacher had a birthday on MLK day, however, because class wasn't held, we are celebrating tomorrow. I volunteered to make her a birthday cake and I allowed my daughter to choose what she wanted. Alyssa, my daughter, asked for a chocolate cake. Perfect, but I wanted to step it up a little, so I added caramel sauce, white chocolate chips and voila, here is probably my favorite cake that I have made so far.
Chocolate Cake with Caramel Sauce
Adapted from a recipe found on Cakecentral.com
- 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter. I replace half with oil to make it more moist
- 1 1/4 cups unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
- 1 1/4 cups hot water
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup sour cream
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 2 x 8 inch pans with non-stick spray.
Whisk together cocoa powder and hot water until smooth. Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.
Melt butter/oil and sugar in saucepan over medium-low heat. Remove from heat, and transfer to a mixer. Beat on medium-low speed until cooled – could take up to 15 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in vanilla and cocoa-powder mixture. Reduce speed to low.
Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the sour cream and beginning and ending with the flour (1/2 batch of flour, then all the sour cream, then the last batch of flour) Beat until just combined.
Helpful Hint – If you plan to double the mixture, it will not fit in a regular kitchen-aid mixer. Just FYI!! I doubled the recipe to make 2 x 9 inch cakes and 24 cupcakes and ended up using a large pot to complete the mixing.
The Frosting
Ingredients - Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
- 1 cup solid white vegetable shortening
- 1 teaspoon clear vanilla flavoring (Wilton flavoring is my favorite)
- 7 teaspoons of water or milk (3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon)
- 1 lb pure cane confectioners sugar
- Pinch of salt
Filling the Cake
To fill the cake, I cut the dome off the top of both the cakes, to make them flat. I placed the first cake right side up (with the cut dome on the top) on the board. Then I put a layer of Caramel sauce on first. I used about a half of a jar of caramel sauce (about 3-4 oz). This does sink into the cake a bit.
I then put a layer of vanilla butter cream frosting on top of the caramel. Followed by a large sprinkling of white chocolate chips on top of the frosting. This can be as much or as little as you want.
The next layer of cake I placed on top of the white chocolate chips. This was placed on the cake upside-down. (With the cut side facing down). Any gaps between the two layers, I filled with vanilla butter cream frosting.
Frosting the cake
When I frost a cake, I like to start on the top and get that covered and relatively smooth. Then I work my way around the side of the cake and make that completely smooth. There is always a bit of an edge for the over lap so I smooth that over going towards the middle of the cake. To smooth the edges I used a spatula with long, straight edges. You can also use a long knife or anything else that has a long edge, but make sure it is straight.
After the cake is frosted, I took my caramel sauce and heated it in the microwave for 10-15 seconds. I slowly poured it around the edge of the cake. I went over it about 3 times to give it enough sauce for a decent drizzle. Then I drizzled a bit more on the top of the cake. This took about 1-2 oz of caramel sauce but you can use as much or as little as you like. Can I just say - I LOVE CARAMEL!!! So Yummy.... anyway... moving on.
I colored the buttercream with brown, a little bit of lemon yellow and a touch of red to get this almost caramel color. Using a large star tip, I swirled rosettes around the edge of the cake and topped them with black fondant flowers and a pearl sprinkle. I made these flowers using a flower press that I purchased at Michaels craft. You can also purchase flowers from Michaels. I have even seen some for sale on etsy.com.
Personally, I was ok with how the cake looked at this point, but my daughter, Alyssa, was not. She wanted more flowers so I repeated this step around the bottom of the cake. She was right, I think it looks much better.
Mmmm....mmmmm....mmmmm - VOILA!!!
