Sweet and Salty Cake

This cake is one of the signature cakes of the Baked bakery in Brooklyn, NY. A combination of moist chocolate cake, salted caramel and rich caramel ganache frosting, it is not for the chocolate faint of heart.

It’s rather labour intensive as it’s composed of several elements. The cake portion is a sturdy cocoa-based cake with good chocolate flavour made by the usual creaming method. I was pleased with how high and level the layers baked - they made for a very tall cake.

Caramel is another of the components, one which must be made twice! The first is the salted caramel that is used to syrup each layer. Unfortunately, it wasn’t absorbed by the cake as the authors indicate even though I poked holes in the cake. I ended up using half as much, but leftovers of this stuff are welcome here…it’s delicious.

The second batch of caramel is used to make the ganache frosting; it’s poured over chocolate to melt it. Once cooled, butter is beaten in. This frosting is only as good as the chocolate used and has a silky, melt-in-your mouth quality.

Assembly of the cake was frustrating…..the ganache frosting is extremely temperature sensitive and 70F, the temp. of my kitchen, was too warm. The cake and frosting required frequent refrigeration between steps (filling, crumb coating, frosting and decorating) - I was thrown off by this and forgot to sprinkle salt between each layer so though my cake was sweet, it wasn’t quite so salty : )

Frustration aside, the finished cake, made for my husband’s birthday, was really delicious and was a huge hit with birthday boy and guests. I don’t think I’ll make it again though, as I’m a big fan of the Sweet and Salty Brownies that appear in the authors’ 2nd book and offer the same flavour profile for a fraction of the work (and cost!).