Sticky Toffee Cake

So, he didn't want a big fuss made but today is my boyfriend's 30th birthday, and I think that deserves a fuss, so I'm dedicating today's blog post to him and his birthday cake. Ali absolutely loves sticky toffee pudding, but also loves cakes with lashings of buttercream, so for his birthday cake I decided to try and mix the two. This is what I came up with (a layer for each decade!!)

I got the recipe for the sponge cake from good old BBC Good Food, but switched in some dark muscovado sugar for a rich sticky toffee taste. The buttercream is just my standard recipe with caramel flavouring instead of vanilla!

Ingredients:
For the cake:
200g margarine
200g golden syrup
pinch of salt
300g self raising flour
200g dark muscovado sugar
30ml milk
3 medium eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the buttercream:
250g butter
500g icing sugar
2tsp caramel flavouring
1-2tsp milk, if needed
One diam bar, to decorate (optional)

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 25-30 minutes
Serves: 12-16

1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees, and grease the cake tins.
2. Pop the margarine, golden syrup and salt into a saucepan and melt over a low heat, stirring occasionally. Put to one side to cool.
3. Sift the flour and the sugar into a large bowl. I know it seems weird to sift sugar, but I find that when using muscovado sugar this is the only way to ensure that you can all the lumps out!
4. Tip the milk, eggs and vanilla into a jug and whisk until combined.
5. Stir the cooled butter and syrup mixture into the flour, then stir in the milk and egg mixture until it all comes together to make a smooth, runny batter.
6. Share the batter evenly between the three cake tins and bake for 25-30 minutes until springy to touch. remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
7. Once the cake have cooled, make your buttercream. If you're using a stand mixer, just pop all of the ingredients into you mixer, turn it on and come back in a few minutes. If, like me, you prefer to mix up your buttercream by hand, you might find it easier to add the icing sugar to the butter around 150g at a time. Beat in the flavouring, and the milk if needed to make the icing a spreadable consistency.
8. Place one of the cakes onto your serving plate, and leave the other two on the cooling rack. Divide the buttercream evenly between the three cakes and spread the the edges before carefully stacking the cakes. Sprinkle crushed up diam bar onto the top tier, and Robert's your father's brother!
9. Make sure to inhale a lot of the yummy toffee whiff that this cake gives off before eating. Seriously, it smells good!!

Happy Thoughts
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