Butterscotch Cake with Caramel Hazelnut Wisps

This cake is somewhat weird and wonderful and looks a little like something out of the Alien movies...however, it certainly has the wow factor and is just a little bit different. The addition of light muscovado to the sponge mixture gives it the butterscotch flavour and the mascarpone frosting is a nice alternative to buttercream...although it's probably not for everyone!

This is the second outing from The Birthday Cake Book by Fiona Cairns, following on from Alice's Teapot Cake last week. It was fun to make and tasted good...although I'd say for my taste the sponge was a little bit dry...or maybe it was just my baking!! :-)

I wanted to give this one a go as I was keen to try making caramel again, following the Weekly Bake-Off Hokey Pokey Coffee Cake...wow that's a mouthful to say. I think I was a bit too keen when making my caramel for the hokey pokey cake as I didn't wait for it to turn a really deep amber, so this time I didn't make the same mistake and the caramel wisps are a lovely deep colour.

So if you have a friend who likes butterscotch and something a bit wacky, this could be the cake for them!

Ingredients

175g unsalted butter

175g self-raising flour

1tsp baking powder

3 eggs

100g golden caster sugar

75g light muscovado sugar

1tsp vanilla extract

 

Frosting

500g mascarpone

1 tbsp black treacle

1 tbsp golden syrup

2 tbsp light muscovado

 

Caramel Whisps

30 blanched hazelnuts

Wooden skewers

110g caster sugar

 

Heat your oven to 180c/170c fan/gas 4 and prepare two 20cm sandwich tins by buttering the sides and lining the bottom. The cake is then easy to make, just sift the flour and baking powder together before adding the remaining ingredients. Mix well but don't over-mix and then divide between the sandwich tins and cook for 20-25 minutes before cooling on a wire rack.

 

To make the frosting you just literally just need to beat all the ingredients together. This frosting might not be for everyone, so you could also use toffee buttercream.

 

For the wisps, put the sugar and water into a heavy based saucepan and then put over a low heat, stir with a metal spoon until all the sugar crystals have dissolved and then turn up the heat so the sugar mixture is boiling, at this stage who should not stir it at all. Leave to boil until the caramel turns a deep amber colour. During this process just pop your hazelnuts onto a baking tray and put them in the oven for 5 minutes on 170c.

When cooled, insert a skewer into each hazelnut. When the caramel is ready you can then dip each one in and ensure it is liberally covered. Place the end of the skewer under a heavy board and a long whisp should form which will take about 5 minutes to harden. One tip though...make sure you place some newspaper on the floor!

* Adapted from The Birthday Cake Book by Fiona Cairns