Chocolate Caramel Cake
Chocolate cake is a classic, but add caramel buttercream and you have something extra special! This Chocolate Caramel Cake combines rich, chocolatey cake layers with a creamy caramel frosting guaranteed to be the star of your dessert table.
What happens when you love chocolate cake, but you’re looking for a little something… extra? Maybe you’ve made my Best Chocolate Layer Cake a few times and you want to switch it up? This is quite literally me, every year, for family birthdays – everyone loves the basic chocolate layer cake but I need a way to give it a little twist. If this is you, allow me to introduce: chocolate caramel cake.
When it comes to cake, the combination of chocolate and caramel is hard to beat! I love big, bold flavors, and this cake really delivers – three layers of moist chocolate cake, drizzles of homemade salted caramel sauce, and smooth caramel buttercream, striking the perfect balance between sweet and rich.
If you’re a chocolate cake lover, get ready! And while you can use storebought caramel sauce or boxed cake mix, this is the perfect opportunity to learn some new kitchen skills. We’re covering everything you need to make this cake entirely from scratch with all my favorite tricks to ensure a success!
Ingredients and Substitutions
The list might look long, but don’t worry – this cake isn’t overly complicated! Here’s what you’ll need to gather:
- Flour: The recipe is written for all-purpose flour, but to keep the cake gluten-free, you can substitute a 1:1 gluten-free all-purpose baking mix.
- Sugar
- Cocoa Powder: This recipe uses natural unsweetened cocoa powder to maximize the deep chocolate flavor. Make sure to use natural unsweetened, not Dutch-processed, cocoa as we need the acidity from the cocoa powder to help leaven the cake.
- Baking Soda & Baking Powder: This combination ensures the cake rises properly: baking soda reacts with the acidity in the cocoa powder while baking powder gives an additional boost.
- Salt
- Eggs: Make sure the eggs are at room temperature to help everything mix together smoothly.
- Buttermilk: Buttermilk adds extra acidity for a super tender cake! If you don’t have buttermilk, mix 1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar with 1 1/2 cups of whole milk and let it sit for 5 minutes before adding to the batter.
- Hot Coffee: Don’t skip this! Coffee intensifies the chocolate flavor and the heat helps dissolve the cocoa powder.
- Vegetable Oil: You can use any neutral oil for baking, but oil will help keep the cake more moist than using melted butter.
- Vanilla Extract
- Heavy Cream
- Butter: Use cool, room-temperature unsalted butter for the smoothest buttercream frosting – ideally, it should be around 65°F.
- Powdered Sugar
How to Make Chocolate Caramel Cake
Step 1: Make the Chocolate Cake
- Prep the Pans: Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease and line three 8-inch round cake pans with parchment paper. This will make it easy to remove the layers after baking.
- Mix Dry Ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Mix Wet Ingredients: In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, coffee, oil, buttermilk, and vanilla extract.
- Combine Ingredients: Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix, either by hand or with a stand mixer, until just combined and no lumps of flour or cocoa powder remain.
- Bake the Cake: Divide the batter evenly among your prepared pans and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in the pans for 15-20 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Step 2: Make the Caramel Sauce
- Combine Ingredients: Combine the water, sugar, and salt in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Stir continuously until the mixture comes to a boil. Continue to boil until the caramel sauce is amber in color.
- Add Heavy Cream: Add the heavy cream and reduce the heat to medium-low, stirring constantly until smooth. Keep cooking until the mixture starts to thicken and the temperature reaches 225-230°F.
- Cool the Sauce: Set the sauce aside to cool completely.
Step 3: Make the Caramel Buttercream
- Cream the Butter: Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and caramel sauce together until smooth and creamy.
- Add the Sugar: Turn the mixer to low and gradually add the confectioners’ sugar, vanilla extract, and salt. Once combined, increase the speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy.
Step 4: Assemble the Cake
- Level the Cakes: If your cake layers have domed on top, use a serrated knife to trim them so they’re flat. This will make stacking easier.
- Frost the Cake: Place the first layer of cake on your serving plate and spread a generous amount of caramel buttercream on top along with a few drizzles of caramel sauce. Repeat with the second layer, and top with the third layer. Use the remaining buttercream to frost the top and sides of the cake.
- Decorate: Use the remaining caramel sauce to drizzle over the top and down the sides of the cake and top with swirls of additional frosting, chopped chocolate, or chopped nuts.
Oil for Extra Moist Cake
One of the key decisions when making a cake is whether to use butter or oil as the fat source. Butter has the better reputation – after all, it brings a lot of flavor! But in this Chocolate Caramel Cake, I’ve opted for oil – and there’s a good reason for it. Oil creates a cake that is incredibly moist and tender because it stays liquid at room temperature, unlike butter which solidifies when it’s cool. This gives the cake a soft, melt-in-your-mouth crumb that stays moist for days.
We can also address this scientifically, using my favorite subject… kitchen chemistry!
Kitchen Chemistry
Oil coats flour proteins more efficiently than butter, preventing the formation of gluten, which causes baked goods to become tough and chewy. As the oil coats the flour proteins, it also traps additional moisture within the batter, resulting in a moister-feeling cake. This is especially important when using cocoa powder, which can dry out cakes and form clumps when creamed together with butter.
Of course, butter brings a rich, unmistakable flavor, which is why many cakes use it. If you prefer a denser crumb with that classic buttery taste, you can substitute melted butter for the oil in this recipe, though you’ll lose some of the moist, light texture that makes this cake so special. But for this particular recipe, where we want the chocolate to shine and the caramel buttercream to take center stage, oil gives us that perfect balance of texture and flavor
Tips and Tricks for the Best Caramel Chocolate Cake
- Room Temperature Ingredients: Bringing your eggs, buttermilk, and butter to room temperature ensures they incorporate smoothly into the batter and frosting.
- Good Quality Cocoa Powder: Baking with hig-quality cocoa powder makes a big difference in cakes. Ghirardelli makes my favorite natural unsweetened cocoa powder.
- Don’t Overmix: Once you add the wet ingredients to the dry, mix just until combined. Overmixing can develop too much gluten, resulting in a tougher, denser cake.
- Add Coffee for Enhanced Flavor: Hot coffee intensifies the chocolate flavor without adding a coffee taste to the cake. If you avoid caffeine, you can use decaf coffee or hot water, but using coffee will give a deeper, richer chocolate flavor.
- Chill Cake Layers: AFter the cakes have cooled completely, wrap them in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (or up to 2 days). Chilled layers are firmer and less likely to crumble when you frost the cake.
- Avoid Warm Caramel: If your homemade caramel sauce is too warm or runny, it can think out your buttercream and make it too difficult to work with. Make sure the caramel sauce is completely cooled to room temperature before adding it to the frosting.
- Size Adjustments: This recipe is written for three 8-inch cake pans. To bake in 6-inch pans, halve the ingredients. To bake in 9-inch pans, multiply each ingredient by 1.5.
- Storage: This cake can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days or frozen for up to 3 months.
- Recommended Tools: Stand Mixer | Beater Blades | 8 Inch Cake Pans | Parchment Rounds | Bake Even Strips | Cooling Racks | Offset Spatula | Cake Turntable
More Chocolate Cake Recipes
- Best Chocolate Layer Cake with Buttercream Frosting
- Chocolate Oreo Cake
- Chocolate Ombre Cake
- S’mores Cake
- Chocolate Cherry Cake
- Chocolate Raspberry Cake
- All Cake Recipes ≫
Chocolate Caramel Cake
Chocolate cake is a classic, but add caramel buttercream and you have something extra special! This Chocolate Caramel Cake combines rich, chocolatey cake layers with a creamy caramel frosting guaranteed to be the star of your dessert table.
Ingredients
For the Cake:
- 2 3/4 cups (330 grams) all-purpose flour
- 3 cups (596 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 cup (84 grams) natural unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups (341 grams) buttermilk
- 1 1/2 cups (341 grams) hot coffee
- 3/4 cup (149 grams) vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
For the Caramel Buttercream:
- 1/2 cup (114 grams) water
- 1 1/4 cups (248 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 rounded teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup (227 grams) heavy cream
- 2 cups (452 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 7 cups (795 grams) confectioners' sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Grease and flour (or spray with nonstick baking spray) three 8-inch round cake pans. Line the pans with parchment paper, then spray or grease and flour again.
- Make the cake batter. Using a mixer, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil, and vanilla extract. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix on low speed until combined, about 2 minutes. The batter will be quite thin.
- Bake the cake batter. Divide the batter evenly among the three pans. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out with a moist crumb. Cool the cakes in the pan for 20 minutes, then turn out on cooling racks to cool completely before frosting.
- Make the salted caramel sauce. Combine water, sugar, and salt in a 3 quart sauce pan over medium heat. Gently stir with a rubber spatula while the mixture comes to a boil, about 5 minutes. Once boiling, continue to boil until the color of the sugar mixture progresses to an amber color - an additional 6 to 7 minutes. Once the desired color is achieved, immediately add the heavy cream and reduce the heat slightly to the higher end of medium low. The mixture will feel hard and clumpy; continue to stir and the sauce will soften and smooth. Keep on a low boil for 3 to 5 minutes to thicken the sauce, or until the desired temperature is achieved using an instant-read thermometer (230 °F). The sauce will still be thin but will thicken as it cools. Set aside to cool completely. For more details and tips on making the caramel sauce, visit this Homemade Salted Caramel Sauce post.
- Make the frosting. Cream the butter and half of the homemade salted caramel sauce in a large bowl using an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat until well combined, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the confectioners' sugar, one cup at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the vanilla extract and pinch of salt and mix on high for one minute. If the frosting is too dry, add a tablespoon or two of heavy cream and mix well.
- Assemble the cake. Level the cakes if necessary. Cover the bottom layer of cake with 1 cup of the frosting and drizzle with a tablespoon or two of the reserved salted caramel. Top with a second layer and cover with frosting and caramel. Place the final layer on top of the cake, top side down, and frost with a thin layer of the frosting. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to set the frosting, then use the remaining frosting to spread on the sides and top of the cake. Use the remaining caramel as a drip down the sides of the cake and the remaining frosting to pipe as decoration.
Notes
- Baking with high-quality cocoa powder makes a big difference in cakes. Ghirardelli makes my favorite natural unsweetened cocoa powder.
- Hot coffee intensifies the chocolate flavor without adding a coffee taste to the cake. If you avoid caffeine, you can use decaf coffee or hot water.
- After the cakes have cooled completely, wrap them in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (or up to 2 days). Chilled layers are firmer and less likely to crumble when you frost the cake.
- This recipe is written for three 8-inch cake pans. To bake in 6-inch pans, halve the ingredients. To bake in 9-inch pans, multiply each ingredient by 1.5.
- Chocolate Caramel Cake can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days or frozen for up to 3 months.
- Recommended Tools: Stand Mixer | Beater Blades | 8 Inch Cake Pans | Parchment Rounds | Bake Even Strips | Cooling Racks | Offset Spatula | Cake Turntable
Recommended Products
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 18 Serving Size: 1 sliceAmount Per Serving: Calories: 750Total Fat: 35gCarbohydrates: 109gProtein: 5g
