Ok, so I love an excuse to bake and that I definitely have! It’s my husbands birthday on Tuesday but we had an early family celebration. I think I am a bit late to the party but have just come across @cupcakejemma. She’s amazing, such an inspirational woman who owns a fantastic bakery in London called @crumbsanddoilies. My 7 year old Poppy is obsessed with Jemma’s videos and I have promised her a trip to the bakery in half term. Anyway I digress – I adapted Jemma’s chocolate orange Halloween cake for this recipe and whipped up some caramel to make a buttercream with her basic recipe.
This is such an easy cake to make and so fun to decorate!
525g plain flour
550g sugar
95 cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1.5 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
5 free range eggs
350 ml coffee
350 ml buttercream
320 ml vegetable oil
150g dark chocolate chunks
Preheat oven to 165 degrees centigrade
Sift all dry ingredients together in a bowl
Mix the wet ingredients making sure the coffee isn’t too hot
Mix the dry to the wet and stir until all is combined well.
Grease 4 8 inch cake tins and distribute equally.
Place in the preheated oven for 25 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.
Leave to cool.
For the butter cream
400g butter
900g icing sugar
Salted caramel
30g butter
60ml cream
100g sugar
A few grinds of salt
Mix up the buttercream in a mixer
Make the salted caramel by melting the sugar which takes around 4 mins
Then add cream and butter – stir well until thickened – then leave to cool.
Once cool add to your buttercream. Add some milk to loosen it until you have your desired texture for spreading on the cake
Decorate as you like
