Yo Joe,

I made this cake for my friend Mátés birthday the other week. OH MY GOD its really good. Máté said he likes anything with coffee and caramel so I combined the two in cake form. How inventive of me.

It’s a marbled sheet cake, one flavour of sponge is vanilla, the darker sponge is coffee and caramel. To top it off is a salted caramel buttercream. If I was making this cake for your birthday, I would get rid of the cake bit and stick candles in a thick layer of caramel buttercream. lol it’s very good. Here are some picture of buttercream for you to enjoy.

To get the caramel in the cake and buttercream I made a caramel sauce. Mmmm. Its surprisingly easy to make. You can mix it into buttercreams, cake batter, whack it on your tooth brush in the morning, use it to stick things to your head. Endless possibilities.

From this recipe you will get about 250ml of caramel sauce so you’ll have leftovers. You are welcome. This doesn’t have to be made on the day you make the cake, it can be made up to 3 days in advance.

Ingredients

To fit in a square or rectangle baking tin. Mine is 20cm by 24cm. You can use whatever you have. Keep in mind depending on the size of your tin, you may need to adjust the baking time for your cake.

Caramel Sauce – Makes about 250ml. This will last in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three days.

• 125g sugar
• 50ml water
• 100ml double cream
• 30g unsalted butter
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Generous pinch of salt

Cake

• 200g unsalted butter
• 170g sugar
• 3 eggs
• 200g self-raising flour
• Splash of milk
• 3 teaspoons instant coffee granules
• 2 tablespoons boiling water

Salted Caramel Buttercream

I never weigh my ingredients for buttercream. I go by texture and taste. If you want some measurements to start off with here you go. (Go on Joe live outside the bubble and don’t use the measurements.)

• 140g softened unsalted butter
• 280g icing sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Generous pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon caramel sauce

Method

Caramel Sauce

Measure out the cream and butter and set aside.

Put the sugar and water in a small heavy based saucepan. Over a medium heat stir the sugar until it has all dissolved into the water, the water will look a bit cloudy. Once the sugar has dissolved stop stirring! Now let the caramel do its thing.

Keep the sugar and water mixture heating over a medium heat, letting it bubble away until it has turned an light amber colour. This will take about 4/5 mins, but keep an eye on it, caramel can go from golden amber coloured to burnt very quickly. One rule for making caramel is not to stir the mixture as it is heating, this will crystallise the sugar. If you want to give the mixture a stir, you can swirl the sauce pan from the handle.

Once the caramel is a colour you are happy with remove it from the heat. Quickly pour the cream into the caramel in one go, it will bubble up, and start stirring the cream in immediately. Now stir in the butter, salt and vanilla extract. Once everything is incorporated you have made caramel sauce!

Cake

For the cake pre heat the oven to 170. Grease and line the baking tin.

Make your coffee. I use 3 teaspoons of instant coffee and 2 tablespoons of boiling water. Set this aside for later. In a bowl cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Weigh out your flour and set this aside.

Beat one egg at a time into the butter mix. Add a spoon of flour with each egg addition to stop the mixture curdling. Add the salt and vanilla extract and give all this a good mix.

Sift in the remaining flour and gently fold this into the cake batter. Separate the batter into two bowls. There should be about half the batter in each bowl.

In one half of the batter, add a splash of milk and mix this gently in, trying not to mix it too much. For the other half of batter gently mix in the 2 tablespoons of coffee and 2 tablespoons of caramel sauce.

Dollop the 2 cake batters in big blobs around the cake tin. Give the whole tin a bit of a shake from side to side to level out the top. Using a knife or skewer draw 2 figure of 8 patters through the cake batter. This will create the marble effect (this is my fav bit).

Bake for 30 mins or until a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool for 10 mins before taking it out of the tin.

Salted Caramel Buttercream

You can eat away now….or you can make the buttercream. Make sure you butter is nicely softened, you can give it a very short burst in the microwave to soften it a bit, just make sure not to melt the butter.

Using a wooden spoon or electric mixer beat your butter until pale and fluffy. Sift in the icing sugar, give it a gentle stir and then go back in the with electric whisk or give it a good mix with the wooden spoon.

Add in the vanilla extract, salt and caramel sauce. Beat the buttercream until light and fluffy. Once the cake is cooled SMUTHER it in the buttercream.

Have a good cake Joe and Happy Birthday Máté. Caitlin xxx