Wednesday 6 April 2011

Chocolate & Caramel Layer Cake

Cuts into 12 slices

Vanilla & chocolate sponges
8oz very soft butter, plus extra for greasing
8oz golden caster sugar
6oz self raising flour
3oz ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
150ml pot natural yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 tbsp cocoa powder

Caramel & caramel-choc sponges
8oz very soft butter, plus extra for greasing
6oz light muscovado sugar
2oz dark muscovado sugar
6oz self raising flour
3oz ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
150ml pot natural yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp cocoa

To assemble
397g can caramel
5oz dark choc
5oz milk choc
300ml double cream

Heat oven to 180, 160 fan, gas mark 4.  Grease and line 2 x 20cm sandwich tins with baking parchment.  For the vanilla and choc sponges, mix all the ingredients, apart from the cocoa, together with an electric whisk.  Scrape half the mix into a second bowl and whizz in the cocoa.  Scrape into the tins and bake for 20-25 mins until a skewer poked in comes out clean.
Repeat step 1 for the caramel and caramel-choc sponges, again leaving cocoa out of the first mixing, the splitting the mix in half and whizzing the cocoa into one batch.  Cook as above.
While sponges are cooling, melt the dark and milk choc together in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water.  Remove from the heat, stir in the cream and cool or chill until spreadable.
When the sponges are cool, spread a third of the caramel over the vanilla sponge and top with the caramel sponge.  Spread over another third of the caramel and top with the caramel-choc sponge, then the final third of caramel and top with the choc sponge (don't panic if you mix up the layers, the cake will still look great when you cut in).  Spread the choc icing over the whole cake to serve.

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