Salted Caramel Birthday Cake and a Killer Giveaway.

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How modern am I? I crowd-sourced my birthday cake. It’s true, it’s my birthday and I’m celebrating with a tiny layer cake and a killer giveaway courtesy of Foodzie!

Earlier this week, I asked people on my Facebook page and on Twitter what their favorite birthday cake was. It was a lively discussion for sure, so I decided to put it to a vote. The suggestions ranged from black forest and German chocolate (two of my least favorites-sorry kids) to white cake with buttercream (yum) and the winner at Flour Girl’s suggestion Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel Buttercream and Chocolate Ganache.  I think it had something like 35 votes!

Of course, it’s my birthday, so I get to switch things up a bit, I’ve gone with a light vanilla sponge cake, layers of salted caramel, one thin layer of rich chocolate ganache, and lots of salty sweet Swiss meringue buttercream.

I woke up this morning and ate a piece of my little cakelet for breakfast. Hey, I’m the birthday girl, and that’s how I roll. This cake was a lot of work, and if I want it at 6am, I shall have it at 6am! It’s a lot of effort, but I would say it’s well worth it. And speaking of effort, the recipes were not my own, so I’ll give credit where credit is due and link to the folks who created them below.

Recipes.
The sponge cake came from this recipe from epicurious:

(it’s only the cake portion)I baked it on an 11×17 baking sheet allowed it to cool completely and cut into 4.5 inch circles with little ring molds. It took 15 minutes to bake, though, not the 10-11 they suggested, but it is one of the tastiest cakes EVER!

The Swiss meringue buttercream is Martha Stewart’s. I halved the recipe, I used 2 tablespoons of vanilla, and replaced one stick of unsalted butter with salted for a salted caramel feel.

I don’t really use a recipe for caramel, I make it so often (can you say junkie?), but the best tutorial in the whole world exists right here. Thanks, David Liebovitz!

But, for the record, I basically use 1 cup of sugar, ½ cup of warm cream, and 2 tablespoons butter with about a half a tablespoon of fleur du sel and do the dry caramel method.

If you want  to check out my methodology, you can see several of my caramels below:

Warm cashew cookies with salted caramel drizzle
Sopapillas with Vegan Caramel
Brown Sugar Lemon Cake with Rosemary Caramel
Pear and Gorgonzola Puff Pastry with Riesling Caramel

And for the ganache…
I melted four ounces of 61% cocoa chocolate over a double boiler and removed from heat then whisked in 1 tablespoon salted butter. I only used about one tablespoon of ganache, BUT… it’s nice to have around the house.

To assemble the cake…
First place down one layer of cake, then a thick layer of salted caramel (about two tablespoons), then another layer of cake with a BIG layer of buttercream, then a layer of cake with thin layer of ganache, then a layer cake with another two tablespoons of caramel with a thin layer of buttercream, then cake.

Then I frosted the whole cake with Swiss meringue buttercream and drizzled with chocolate and salted caramel and ganache. I refrigerated the whole cake overnight. I loved how the caramel was super chewy and the chocolate was crisp. A perfect breakfast! Oh my.

About that giveway. Foodzie is giving away one of their amazing tasting boxes.

You have three chances to enter the giveway
1. Join my facebook page & post a message to your wall letting your friends know about this giveaway. THEN leave a comment on this blog letting me know you’ve done so

2. Follow me on twitter & tweet bout this giveaway with the URL. THEN leave a comment on this blog letting me know you’ve done so

3. Join foodzie’s facebook page & post a message to your wall letting your friends know about this giveaway. THEN leave a comment on this blog letting me know you’ve done so

Make sure to leave a SEPARATE COMMENT for each activity to have the most chances to win. If you already follow me or foodzie on Facebook or on Twitter, no problem. Just post/tweet about the giveaway and enter your comment on this blog.

Good luck. The winner will be chosen by random number generator and will be announced on August 12^th!

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Tagged as: Baked, Baking, birthday, birthday cake, Butter, buttercream, Cake, caramel, Chocolate, Eggs, ganache, homemade, organic, salt, salted caramel, Swiss Meringue