A couple of month's ago it was my lovely mum's birthday and, like mother like daughter, she loves her chocolate, so of course I had to make her a chocolate cake! I love a traditional chocolate fudge cake, but I decided to go for a bit of a twist. I've only eaten salted caramel a couple of times, but was keen to combine it with chocolate and try it out in a cake. Sweet, salty, yummy! This cake is definitely for those with a sweet tooth!
I saw this cake on Pinterest and loved the simple yet effective look of it. I followed this recipe, but decided to use the sponge from this recipe for a chocolate fudge cake, making only 2 layers instead of 3. It's the perfect blend of spongey, fluffy and moist - delicious!
The main problem I had with this cake was the timing with the fridge. The salted caramel and chocolate ganache were incredibly easy to make, but I chilled them for a bit too long. As a result the caramel turned solid, meaning there were a few caramel lumps in the cream cheese salted caramel buttercream, but my God did that buttercream taste good!! By far one of my favourite buttercreams I've ever made, even if it did have a bit of a crunch. The chocolate ganache was also chilled for too long, making it difficult to spread over the cake despite turning to the microwave in a desperate attempt to salvage it. I didn't get the smooth, glossy appearance of the original cake, but thankfully I like the home made look of textured frosting.
For the decoration I made salted caramel truffles using this recipe. I've never made truffles before but they have always been something I've wanted to try. They were very easy to make, and thankfully I didn't leave the mixture in the fridge for too long so were easy to mould into balls. However, I wasn't too sure about the taste... Maybe I put too much salt in them, but they just weren't for me. I think in the future I'll be sticking with the plain chocolate truffles! Also, as this cake contained a lot of fresh cream in the buttercream and ganache I decided it should be kept in the fridge, but as a result the truffle mixture spread in the middle of the layers turned solid. The taste wasn't affected, and in fact I liked the contrast between the light sponge and hard truffle mix, but it did make it a bit more difficult to cut into! Despite of all that though, I absolutely loved the look of the truffles on top of the cake with my usual statement pile of dark chocolate curls as they give it that little bit extra!
Overall I'm very pleased with how this cake turned out. I love the appearance of it, especially the contrast between the light buttercream and dark chocolate sponge in the layers. Be warned though, this cake is INCREDIBLY sweet and sickly! Luckily I have a huge sweet tooth, but maybe stick to small slices for this cake.
Happy baking!
Love, Beth xxx
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