Chocolate & Caramel Ombre Cake
Another week, another birthday cake! This time, I decided to attempt an ombre cake – chocolate and caramel to be precise. I found the recipe on the BBC Good Food website but modified it slightly for a smaller cake. The ombre effect worked very well and it was an easy recipe to follow.
The cake is made up of 4 layers – chocolate, choco-caramel, vanilla-caramel and vanilla. The middle two layers aren’t caramel as such, but they do use a mix of dark and soft brown sugar to give them a slightly darker tint. I used caramel as the filling and a creamy chocolate mix for the frosting.
The recipe I used follows, it’s an adjustment on the original recipe as it’s based on a 6 inch round cake rather than an 8 inch round cake. I’m also saving you the torture of seeing the calorie count on the Good Food website…
- 110g unsalted butter, room temp
- 110g caster sugar
- 90g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 40g ground almonds
- 2 eggs
- 75ml natural yoghurt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder
- 110g unsalted butter, room temp
- 90g light muscovado sugar
- 25g dark muscovado sugar
- 90g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 40g ground almonds
- 2 eggs
- 75ml natural yoghurt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1/2 can of tinned caramel
- 70g dark chocolate
- 70g milk chocolate
- 150ml double cream
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and grease two 6 inch round cake tins
- Mix together the butter, sugar, plain flour, baking powder and ground almonds.
- When combined, add eggs and yoghurt.
- Separate this mixture into two separate bowls. In one bowl, add the vanilla extract and mix well. In the second bowl, add the cocoa powder and mix well.
- Pour the mixtures into separate cake tins and bake for approx. 18 minutes (may depend on your oven)
- Mix together butter, sugars, plain flour, baking powder and ground almonds.
- When combined, add eggs, yoghurt and vanilla extract.
- Separate this mixture into two separate bowls as per before, adding the cocoa powder to just one of the mixtures.
- Pour these mixtures into separate cake tins and bake for 18 minutes.
- Whilst the cakes are baking/cooling, make the chocolate frosting by melting the chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.
- Once chocolate has melted, remove from heat and add double cream, mixing together until it is well combined
- Leave to chill in the fridge for at least 10 minutes, until firm enough to hold its shape.
- It's up to you which order you stack the cakes, just make sure you go from light to dark or dark to light. Sandwich each layer together with caramel before frosting the entire cake in chocolate frosting.
- Leave in the fridge to firm up slightly before serving!