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This gluten-free Salted Caramel Chocolate Espresso Cake is one of my favourite cakes from the cake stall. A chocolate lover’s sponge sandwiched together with silky salted caramel swiss meringue buttercream and drizzled with thick luscious salted caramel. Happy Valentine’s Day!
To me, Valentine’s Day is really just an excuse for being a bit fancy. Not just any old flowers will do, it should really be roses. Not just any old bottle of plonk will do, it should really be champagne. If you think a bar of Dairy Milk will suffice, even if Fruit and Nut is your favourite, then you are kidding yourself. Valentine’s Day surely means an assortment of Paul A Young chocolate individually selected. And if there is not a Salted Caramel in there then Valentine’s Day might as well be off.
So, if nothing says romantic to you than chocolate cake, then for one you are in fine company, and for two, the chocolate cake really needs to be intimately involved with Salted Caramel to make it Valentine’s Day worthy.
When I transitioned my cake stall over to gluten-free then this Salted Caramel Chocolate Espresso Cake was the first to make the transition as it’s an absolute favourite of mine and my customers. It looks beautiful and it really delivers on chocolate flavour with a hint of espresso. If you are not a coffee lover then you can easily leave it out, bar a couple of teaspoons which helps to amplify the chocolate flavour. With both cocoa for richness and 70% melted chocolate folded into the batter, the result is true luxury. Buttermilk gives the sponge a gentle tanginess and using a light olive oil instead of butter makes the cake light and moist.
To make the cake gluten-free I swapped plain wheat flour for a combination of oat flour and white rice flour which is a great alternative, especially as oat flour gives the cake a toasted butterscotch flavour that sits so happily here.
Swiss Meringue Buttercream is the best way to finish this cake, it smoothes over the sponge like a dream with it’s buttery silky texture and is never too sweet. It is so much easier to whip up than you think and the generous pouring of salted caramel into the finished buttercream amps up the end result to 11 and then some.
I recommend treating yourself to a generous slice of Salted Caramel Chocolate Espresso Cake over Valentine’s Day. It’s ideal for lovers, broken hearts and happy friendships. Plus it’s just a little bit more fancy than your regular chocolate cake.
Salted Caramel Chocolate Espresso Cake {gluten-free}
Ingredients
- 125 g 70% dark chocolate
- 165 g white rice flour
- 60 g oat flour
- 90 g cocoa powder
- 2 tablespoons espresso powder
- 1¾ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 400 g buttermilk
- 160 g caster sugar
- 160 g soft light brown sugar
- 170 ml light olive oil
- 3 eggs
- 1 teaspoon bourbon vanilla extract
Salted Caramel
- 250 g caster sugar
- 300 ml double cream
- 40 g butter
- 1 teaspoon sea salt - I used Fleur de Sel
Salted Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- 240 g egg whites - around 8
- 200 g caster sugar
- 200 g light soft brown sugar
- 500 g unsalted butter - at room temperature, cubed
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ quantity of salted caramel - see recipe
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 170°C and line and grease 2 x 8 inch round cake tins.
- Melt the chocolate in a bain marie then set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl whisk together the flours, cocoa powder, espresso powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt until well mixed.
- In a separate bowl mix together the buttermilk, sugars, olive oil, eggs and vanilla then beat into the flour mixture.
- Finally mix in the melted chocolate until completely incorporated.
- Divide the mixture between the 2 cake tins and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
- Turn out the cakes and cool on wire racks before filling with buttercream.
Salted Caramel
- To make the Salted Caramel pour the caster sugar into a small saucepan into an even layer and heat on a medium temperature until the sugar melts. Do not touch with a spoon but you can encourage the melting by swirling the saucepan around occasionally if you like.
- Once melted, carefully stir in the double cream and butter, the caramel may harden slightly but just keep on stirring the bubbly mixture until the caramel is smooth. Remove from the heat then stir in the salt.
- Chill the caramel for a few hours until it has thickened up.
- Use half of the cold caramel in the buttercream, reserving the rest for drizzling over the cake.
Salted Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- To make the Salted Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- Heat the egg whites, caster sugar and light soft brown sugar in a bain marie, stirring constantly until the sugar has dissolved and the temperature has reached 71°C.
- Remove the egg whites and sugar from the heat and pour into a stand mixer with whisk attachment. Whisk until the mixture forms firm peaks.
- Change the attachment to a paddle attachment. On a low speed add the butter slowly cube by cube. When you have almost added all the butter the mixture will look curdled. Do not fret – this is supposed to happen and just means you are nearly done. Just continue to add all the butter. Once the butter is totally incorporated the buttercream will miraculously become a smooth velvety consistency.
- Add the salt, vanilla extract and half of the chilled salted caramel. Mix until thoroughly combined.
Assembly
- Spread the buttercream over one of the chocolate cakes, then place the second chocolate cake on top. Cover the cakes with a thin layer of buttercream as a crumb coat. This will ensure the first layer of buttercream catches all the loose crumbs of the cake. Place the cake in the fridge for an hour for the crumb coat to firm up.
- Once the crumb coat is firm then cover the cake with the rest of the buttercream. Place back in the fridge for an hour for the second coat of buttercream to firm up which will help form a solid base for the caramel drizzle.
- Warm up the reserved caramel in a saucepan for about 30-60 seconds until it is just at pouring consistency.
- Pour the caramel all over the top of the cake, starting at the centre and working out, encouraging some of the caramel to drip over the side.
- Serve the cake at room temperature.
Hello Georgina,
Thank you for the recipe.
Please may I ask can I use just doves farm gluten free plain flour and eliminate all the other flours. Also does the baking powder need to be gluten free as well. Many thanks.
Hi Pam, I do not recommend using only Doves Farm GF flour in replacement of all the other flours as it doesn't produce a good result in this recipe - it would be too dry and crumbly. However, you could use a mix of half Doves Farm and half ground almonds and that would produce a delicious cake with good texture. Yes, if you require your cake to be gluten-free then you will need to use a gluten-free baking powder. Most baking powders are gf but do check the label.
What flour can I use in place of the rice flour as there is a food allergy?
Thank you,
I would recommend using sorghum flour as a substitute.
This cake is absolutely mad, for gluten free as well, easily best cake I've ever eaten. Thank you for improving my life
Thank you so much - I'm so happy you loved the cake!
Can I make this with Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 gluten free flour?
Hi Ann, yes I think that it would work fine with Bob's 1 to 1. Just use 225g of Bob's and remove the white rice flour and oat flour.
I noticed you don't use a starch, i.e. tapioca or sweet white rice. Is this correct? Thanks.
That's correct! The starch helps to bind a cake together. Here we use melted chocolate in the batter instead. I find the same is often true with banana cakes and I don't always use a starch in those either.
Hey,
You mention both caster sugar and light soft brown sugar in ingredients for the meringue buttercream but in the instructions only mention adding the caster sugar. (Only noticed this when I reached this point in the recipe now I'm confused.)
Hi Tim, I'm so sorry about the confusion. You add the caster sugar and the light brown sugar in with the egg whites at the same time. I've rectified this in the recipe so hopefully it makes more sense now.
I don't have a kitchen scale... any chance you could give me the amounts in volume?
Thanks!
Hi Louise, I'm afraid I developed the recipe using weighed ingredients as that was how I was taught to bake. We don't use cups much in the UK. Without testing the recipe using volume measures I'd hate to steer you in the wrong course. However, there are plenty of excellent websites which can convert grams to cups and vice versa. It's definitely a tool I plan on including in the blog asap!!
This looks spectacular! For a non-gluten-free cake, should I use the equivalent quantity of plain flour, or does it need any extra baking powder? I'm also planning to make the cake a day in advance - is it happy sitting assembled and iced in the fridge overnight, as long as I bring it to room temp and give it the final draping of salted caramel before serving? Thank you!
Thank you Will. If you want to make this cake using regular plain flour then you just need to substitute the rice flour and the oat flour with 225g plain flour. No extra baking powder is needed. You could also reduce the eggs to just 2 as the extra egg is used in the gf version for binding, the gluten in the wheat flour should do the job of the extra egg. Yes, the cake is happy sitting assembled and iced in the fridge overnight. Good luck with it and let me know how you get on!
This cake looks so, so good! And pretty!
Thank you so much Bethany!
Okay, how stinking gorgeous and delicious can one cake be? Seriously, this like defies the rules of deliciousness. I NEEEED this in my life ASAP!
Thank you Karly - this really is one of my favourite cakes!!