For years I avoided ‘salted caramel’ flavour anything. To me it just seemed so wrong. Like bacon and maple syrup (I still dont get that combo) or pineapples on pizza 🤮 I just couldn’t get my head around the sweet – savoury mix.
Then one day at Frederick’s Ice Cream Parlour (if you live in Lancashire then you know) I was offered a spoonful. I’d been turning my nose up at it as we tried to decide which scoops to buy. And the rest, as they say, is history. Now I’d choose salted caramel over pretty much ANY flavour.
When a flavour is this perfect, you don’t need alot of fussy decoration, so my salted caramel is naked. Naked cakes are quick and easy and yet somehow they look really impressive. Here’s how you make one.
You Will Need
220g margerine
220g self raising flour
180g soft dark brown sugar
40g caster sugar
4 eggs
Dash of milk
Couple of pinches of salt
Vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
For decoration
200g icing sugar
100g margerine
Vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
Dash of Milk
Pinch of cocoa powder
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180
- Melt the margerine and allow to cool
- Whisk the eggs until light and fluffy
- Add the brown and caster sugar and whisk again.
- Pour the margerine into the eggs while whisking
- Add the salt, vanilla extract, flour and baking powder and mix well
- Grease and line a round baking tin.
- You can seperate the mixture into five smaller bowls but I don’t bother. The layers don’t need to be completely uniform so save yourself the washing up.
- I put 2 big dollops (technical term) in each tin.
- Bake until golden and firm.
- Allow to cool completely
- Now you can slice the cake layers to make them really uniform or leave them as they are. Here’s a really neat one I made for Beth.
Whereas this one has been stacked as they baked.
To Decorate
- Beat the margerine until pale
- Add half of the icing sugar and beat until pale.
- Pour in the remaining icing sugar and beat again.
- Add the vanilla extract, a splash of milk, a pinch of salt and a pinch of cocoa powder.
- Mix well.
- Place what will be your bottom slice on your plate or cake stand
- Using a pallet knife, spread a very thin layer onto your bottom slice.
- Add the next slice and repeat.
- Once you have all five layers topped with buttercream, spread a thin layer all around the side.
- Make sure you spread buttercream into any gaps between the layers.
- Top with flowers or other natural decoration
I made this for a Macmillan coffee morning and it went down very well indeed! 😊
However photographing it that morning wasn’t quite as successful. Dorothy only wanted me to take pictures of… Dorothy!
And when I suggested that maybe we should take one of just the cake, she threw a bit of a wobbler.
🤦Talk about Instagram verses reality!
Love Rachel ❤️