Chocolate & Caramel Ombre Cake

For the ultimate indulgence look no further than Sarah Cook's four-layered chocolate-caramel extravaganza

• Cooking Time Prep 1 hr
  Cook 55 mins
• Skill Level Moderately easy
• Servings Cuts into 12 slices

Nutrition per serving

• Kcalories

  1036

• Protein

  15g

• Carbs

  99g

• Fat

  67g

• Saturates

  35g

• Fibre

  3g

• Sugar

  75g

• Salt

  1.25g

Ingredients

• For vanilla & chocolate sponges
• 225g very soft butter, plus extra for greasing
• 225g golden caster sugar
• 175g self-raising flour
• 85g ground almonds
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 150ml pot natural yogurt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 5 tbsp cocoa powder
• For caramel & caramel-choc sponges
• 225g very soft butter, plus extra for greasing
• 175g light muscovado sugar
• 50g dark muscovado sugar
• 175g self-raising flour
• 85g ground almonds
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 150ml pot natural yogurt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp cocoa
• To assemble
• 397g can caramel (stocked near the condensed milk in stores)
• 140g dark chocolate
• 140g milk chocolate
• 300ml double cream

Directions

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and line bases of 2 x 20cm sandwich tins with baking parchment. For the Vanilla & chocolate 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.
2. Repeat step 1 for the Caramel & caramel-choc sponges, again leaving cocoa out of the first mixing, then splitting the mix in half and whizzing the cocoa into one batch. Cook as above.
3. While sponges are cooling, melt the dark and milk chocolate 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.
4. 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 Chocolate sponge (don't panic if you mix up the layers, the cake will still look great when you cut in). Spread the chocolate icing over the whole cake to serve. It will keep in a cool place in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Categories: Cakes & Baking, Chocolate, Events