Chocolate Caramel Malteser Cake

Chocolate cake is the usual request for celebration cakes in our house and I've made quite a few different kinds of chocolate cakes over the years.  I'm easily bored, so always like to use or create a new recipe and I found my inspiration at Lavender and Lovage, where my friend, Karen had posted a Salted Caramel and Chocolate Fudge Birthday Cake, many thanks to Karen for allowing me to post her recipe here with my minor variations.

Salted Caramel is very on trend and we love it, but as this cake had to be eaten by family with ages ranging from 2 years old to 90+ years old, I needed to keep the flavours a little more traditional, so I took out the salt but kept the caramel.

Maltesers make a really effective and simple decoration and they certainly went down well with everyone.

Chocolate Caramel Malteser Cake

For the cake

140g crème fraiche
125g  butter
200g soft light brown sugar
2 drops vanilla extract
4 free-range eggs
170g plain flour
50g cocoa powder (not hot chocolate)
1 teaspoon baking powder

for the caramel spread

3 tbsp caramel sauce or dulce de leche

for the buttercream icing

125g soft butter
2 drops vanilla extract
250g icing sugar

for the caramel buttercream

6 tbsp caramel sauce or dulce de leche 

for the chocolate buttercream

60g dark chocolate

for the decoration

121g share bag of Maltesers

To make the cake

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C and grease and line two 20cm sandwich cake tins.
2. Put all the cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl and beat well for 3 to 4 minutes with an electric hand whisk, or 5-6 minutes by hand.
3. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tins and level the tops, leaving a slight dip in the middle of the cakes so they rise evenly. Bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and shrinking away from the sides of the cake tins.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tins for about 10 minutes, before removing them from the tins and cooling completely on wire racks.

To make the two kinds of buttercream icing

1. First make the basic buttercream, beat the butter with an electric hand whisk until it is well blended.
2. Sift the icing sugar and the vanilla extract into the butter and gently mix together, then using the electric mixer beat until the mixture is fully blended and fluffy.
3. Remove a third of the mixture and place in another bowl, add 3 tbsp of caramel sauce or dulce de leche to the buttercream and mix again. If the mixture seems a little too stiff, then add a little milk.
4. Place the chocolate in a bowl and either melt over a pan of hot water, or melt in the microwave in blasts of 30 seconds to make sure you don't over heat it. Cool the chocolate for about 5 minutes, stirring regularly.  Add to the remaining buttercream and beat with the electric whisk.

To assemble the cake

1. Place one of the cake layers on a serving plate, spread 3 tbsp of caramel sauce over the base (it will sink in).  Now spread the caramel buttercream over the base and place the second sponge on top.
2. Cover the top and sides of the sandwich cake with the chocolate buttercream and cover the top with Maltesers, starting at the outside and making concentric circles of the chocolates. 

If you like the idea of pairing chocolate with other flavours, here are a few ideas for great combinations from popular UK Food Blogs:

Slow Cooker Chocolate Mint Aero Bubble Cake - Baking Queen 74
Triple Layer Chocolate Mud Cake - Made with Pink
Chocolate Orange Cake - The Foodie Couple Blog
Jelly Tots Chocolate Cake - Planet Veggie
Moist Chocolate After Eight Cake - Tinned Tomatoes
Chocadoodledoo Cake (with minted strawberry cream) - Tin and Thyme
Chocolate and Porter Cake - Kavey Eats

I'm entering this for Bake of the Week run by Casa Costello and hosted this week by Jen's Food

This is my first entry for  Cake Club at Kerry Cooks. Kerry is also featuring a Chocolate Malteser cake, they are obviously popular!
 

Anything goes at We Should Cocoa this month as long as it contains chocolate which this surely does! We Should Cocoa is a long standing blog challenge run by Choclette at Tin and Thyme.