The beginning of the year brings lots of chances to celebrate in my world – New Year’s Eve/Day, my birthday (last week!), and now my blogiversary! A year ago today I started this blog. And what a fun year it’s been! My first post a year ago was for my Grandma’s Sour Cream Sugar Cookies, a recipe that is beloved in my family. This year, I’m sharing a cake I’ve been wanting to make for a while (and the one I made for my birthday this year) – Chocolate Cake with Earl Grey Buttercream and Salted Caramel Sauce.
The Cake
The cake itself is Ina Garten’s famous chocolate cake, and is my go-to chocolate cake recipe. This cake is famous for good reason – it’s soft, fluffy and moist (sorry to use the m-word, but it’s true), yet still manages to have an incredibly dense chocolatey flavor. It’s also quick and easy to toss together. Plus, I’m a fan of any cake that calls for pouring a cup of freshly brewed hot coffee right into the batter. YUM.
Note: You can’t taste the coffee at all. Really – it just enhances the chocolate flavor. But if you can’t stand the thought of putting coffee in your cake, try hot water. I haven’t tried it so can’t vouch for the result, but it should work. You may want to consider adding something else to enhance the chocolate flavor, like a bit of almond extract or vanilla bean paste.
Hot tip: This cake is a very moist (sorry again), VERY delicate cake. I’ve had it fall apart on me before when I was too impatient to let it cool completely. It’s best if you let it cool in the pan for 30 minutes, then on a wire rack for at least an hour, preferably 2, before frosting. For best results, bake the cake layers a day or two in advance, wrap them in plastic, and chill in the fridge or freezer. It will be much easier to handle and frost.
The Frosting
I’ve wanted to make an Earl Grey Buttercream for a while now, so my birthday seemed like a great excuse. A few years ago, I made this Basil Buttercream by Sarah Kieffer (Vanilla Bean Blog) and fell in love – both with the basil flavor (seriously, YUM) and the method.
This is a cooked frosting, which can seem a bit daunting. Don’t fret though – while there are a few steps to it, it’s not difficult. First, you infuse a warm milk-cream mixture (in this case, with Earl Grey tea), let it chill overnight, then strain it and heat it again with flour & sugar until it’s thick & bubbly. Then you whip it with a stand mixer until it’s cool, then mix in the butter. THREE sticks of butter to be precise. This is a rich, creamy, buttery buttercream – just perfect for a celebration!
You can use this method with myriad other flavors too – I think ground coffee or fresh ginger would be amazing. Or go herbal and try the original basil, or maybe rosemary or lavender. The options are endless. Do you see why I love this method?
The Caramel
I decided my cake needed to be a little over the top this year. I turned 44 on the 4th – so it’s basically my double golden birthday, if that’s a thing? I’m making it a thing. Anyway, I figured such an epic birthday needed an epic cake. So of course I smothered it in the creamiest, dreamiest salted caramel.
I blatantly stole this recipe from David Lebovitz’ book My Paris Kitchen (an early birthday gift to myself!) – it’s too good as it is to change it. This is a caramel that is cooked until nice and dark, adding a savory, almost bitter quality that complements the sweetness of frosting (or ice cream!) SO well. Add some good sea salt and I’m in caramel heaven.
This recipe will make more than you need for the cake, so you’ll have plenty left over for your ice cream (you’re welcome). It keeps really well in the fridge for at least a week (possibly longer, but mine didn’t last long enough to find out). I’ve made other caramels that crystallize in the fridge, but this one stays smooth, creamy, and gooey, just as a caramel should.
Put it all together and CELEBRATE!
Spread that buttery buttercream over the moist, fluffy chocolate cake, and drown it in creamy salted caramel. Then wow your friends and fam with a truly epic cake (or hoard it all for yourself – no judgement).
This cake takes some time and a little planning, but it’s so worth it. Plus, a celebration deserves a great cake. As Julia Child said, “A party without a cake is just a meeting”. I couldn’t agree more.
Chocolate Cake with Earl Grey Buttercream and Salted Caramel
Ingredients
The Chocolate Cake
- 1 3/4 c flour
- 2 c sugar
- 3/4 c cocoa powder*
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 c buttermilk
- 1/2 c vegetable oil
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 c hot coffee
Earl Grey Buttercream**
- 1 1/2 c whole milk
- 1/3 c heavy cream
- 1/4 c loose leaf Earl Grey tea
- 1 1/2 c sugar
- 1/3 c flour
- 1 1/2 c butter, softened (3 sticks)***
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
Salted Butter Caramel Sauce
- 1 c sugar
- 1/2 c water
- 6 T salted butter, cubed, at room temperature
- 1/2 c heavy cream
- sea salt or kosher salt, to taste
Instructions
The Chocolate Cake
- Preheat oven to 350°F
- Line the bottoms of two 8-inch cake pans with parchment paper, then butter and flour them.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachments, sift together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix until combined.
- In a separate bowl, combine buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla and mix until combined.
- Slowly add the wet ingredients into the dry, mixing on low speed.
- Add the coffee and stir to combine, stopping to scrape the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
- Once all is well-combined, divide batter evenly into your prepared cake pans.
- Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out mostly clean, with just a few moist crumbs.
- Cool for 30 minutes in the pan, then remove from pans and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. Note: this cake is very moist & tender – be careful when removing from pans. For best results, place a plate on top of the pan, then flip over so the cake comes out onto the plate. Then carefully transfer cake to wire rack.Once cool, go ahead and frost, or wrap tightly in plastic and refrigerate for 1-2 days or freeze for up to a month. Allow to come to room temperature before frosting.
Earl Grey Buttercream
- In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the milk, heavy cream, and tea. Heat gently, stirring, just until simmering. It will be steaming, you'll see little bubbles around the outside edge, and it will feel nice & hot when you dip your pinky in it.
- Remove from heat and allow to cool completely, then refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight. Strain out tea using a wire mesh strainer.
- In another heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine sugar & flour and whisk together. Add the milk-tea mixture and whisk until well combined. Cook over medium heat, whisking occasionally (make sure to get into the corners of the pan with the whisk), for about 10-15 minutes, or until it thickens and starts to boil. At this point it will kind of look like thick caramel.
- Pour into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on high speed until completely cool, about 7-9 minutes.
- Reduce speed to low and add butter, a little at a time, mixing until well combined. Don't worry if there are butter chunks visible at this point.
- Increase to medium high speed and beat until mixture is light and fluffy and butter chunks are completely incorporated – about a minute or two more.
- Add vanilla and mix until combined.Note: At this point, if the frosting is too soft, pop it in the fridge to chill for a bit (10-15 minutes should do the trick), then beat again until fluffy.
- Once you have a fluffy, spreadable frosting, and your cakes are completely cool, you can get to frosting your cake!
- Place one layer on a plate/serving tray. Scoop about 1/3 of the frosting onto the top of the cake layer, and spread evenly.
- Top with the other layer, and spread another 1/3 of the frosting onto the top. Use the remaining frosting to frost the sides of the cake.Note: You may want to do a "crumb coat" on this cake to help keep from getting crumbs in the frosting. When frosting the outside of the cake, spread a thin layer of frosting evenly over the cake. Then place the cake in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes or so, until the frosting has solidified. Then spread the rest of the frosting evenly onto the outside of the cake.
- Place the cake in the fridge to chill while you make the caramel sauce.
Salted Butter Caramel Sauce
- Put the sugar in a heavy bottomed wide saucepan, then pour the water over it. Don't stir.
- Heat over medium heat, swirling the pan gently until the sugar is completely moistened.
- Once sugar is moistened, leave it on the heat and allow it to cook, only swirling the pan occasionally. Watch for spots of sugar that aren't melting and swirl the pan gently to help it cook evenly.
- Continue cooking over medium heat until the mixture starts to darken (a.k.a., caramelize). Again, only swirl the pan if it looks like the sugar mixture isn't darkening evenly. Note: This didn't happen for me, but if your mixture crystallizes, keep cooking, and stir only if you notice really dark spots. The mixture should smooth out on its own.
- Once your caramel is a deep, dark amber color (juuust shy of burning) and starts to smoke a little, take it off the heat and add the cubes of butter. The caramel will foam up at this point.
- Whisk until butter is completely melted, then slowly add the cream(it will foam up again). Stir until smooth.
- Once sauce is cool enough to taste, add salt to taste.
- Allow your caramel sauce to cool completely (about 30-60 minutes). To speed cooling, pour it into another bowl or container, and stir occasionally.
- Spoon some of the cooled caramel onto the top of the cake, spreading to the edges and allowing it to drip down the sides. If it's too thick to spread or drip, pop it in the microwave for just a few seconds to thin it out. Once you have it how you like it, pop the cake back in the fridge until you're ready to serve it.
- Store any extra caramel in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Bonus: this caramel is AMAZING on ice cream.