Caramel Mud Cake

Caramel Mud Cake

I decided to finally step away from chocolate and do an all time favourite of mine. My love for Caramel Mud Cake started from Michael's Patisserie. I had never bought a cake from a store beside Coles because I was so used to my Mum or me making everything from scratch. I was under the impression that homemade cakes were always better until... I found the caramel Mud Cake from Michael’s. Since then I've always thought of making my own and seeing if I could beat the infamous store bought cake.

Today is the day! Wish me luck!

(Little bit fancy!)

Ingredients

Cooking oil spray, for greasing

250g butter, chopped

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup milk

200g white cooking chocolate, chopped

1 ½ cups plain flour

½ cup self-raising flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 eggs, lightly beaten

BUTTERCREAM ICING

¼ cup caster sugar

2 Tbsp water

¼ cup pure cream, warmed

2 tsp vanilla extract

200g unsalted butter, chopped, at room temperature

2 cups icing sugar mixture

Method

1. Preheat oven to 150C. Grease a 20 x 7 cm round cake tin with cooking oil spray and line with baking paper, allowing a 2cm overhang. 
2. Put butter, sugar and milk in a medium saucepan over a medium heat and cook until butter has melted, stirring occasionally. Add chocolate and whisk until smooth. Do not boil. There will still be a few small specks of chocolate in the mixture. Transfer to a large bowl and set aside for 15 minutes to cool to room temperature.
3. Sift flours over cooled mixture and stir to combine. Add vanilla extract and egg and whisk until smooth.
4. Pour mixture into prepared tin and bake for 1 hour. Loosely cover with foil and bake for 1 hour. Loosely cover with foil and bake for a further 55 - 60 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Set aside in a tin to cool to room temperature. Using a serrated knife, trim off the top cap of the cake, still leaving a slight dome.
5. To make buttercream icing, put caster sugar and water in a small saucepan over a medium heat and bring to the boil. Cook, without stirring, for 6 minutes or until caramel turns light amber. Remove pan from heat. Add cream and vanilla extract and stir to combine. Set aside for 20 minutes to cool.
6. Put butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and fluffy. Add icing sugar and beat for 2 minutes. Add caramel and beat for a further 2 minutes.
7. Transfer cake to a serving plate. Spread buttercream icing over top and side of cake in a thick layer to coat.

Recipe and image from: Better Homes and Gardens August Magazine, Page 36-37.

Review

This cake was MODERATELY HARD. There are lots of elements to the cake and it requires some pre learned cooking skills (such as when caramel is form from melting sugar). Overall the cake was delicious! My Mum loved it the most and she hardly likes caramel or mud cake. I definitely want to make it again because I feel like I made some mistakes within the recipe which then changed the final taste. I don’t think it beat the Michael’s Patisserie version but I’m willing to keep trying!

Recipe Amendments/ Recommendations

My amendments and recommendations are as follows:

• In a fan forced preheated oven, watch the cake carefully because it cooks a lot faster than the recipe states.

• There is a lot of icing so get creative with decorating

• Do not store in the fridge as the cake dries out.

An overall success!

- Adelaide 

(The final product - with a little extra decoration!)