Vanilla Caramel Chocolate Cake with Dulce de leche (DDL) frosting and ganache

Now I feel lucky to be a house wife. When I was in school i was One girl with high ambitions in life. Scoring high in Grad school, then working and earning was my dream. But after I got married, the whole scenario changed. Even though my husband did not have any objection in me working, my priorities changed to being a good home maker. While I waited for kids to grow up and things to settle down, things got out of my calculations and I got confined inside the four walls. And it was late before I realised that being a house wife or home maker is no less than all other paid jobs plus I now feel lucky that I discovered a new passion which I would n't have discovered if I were a working person. I dont make money but I have plenty of time to execute my passion. Not that I have no work at home, of course i run in short of time and that is not rarely and that is the case always with three little kids but I feel atleast I am not bound by work or a boss which would have been otherwise the case if I were an employee. Yes, I am not guilty to admit that I have my house work pending when I find time for blogging. As people ask me how on earth you find time to blog, I simply remain silent and smile. After settling all my house work I will never have time. So I found a new way not to over stress myself with keeping my house perfect. I found out that it is equally important to keep myself happy rather than spend my whole day just doing house work. money isnt everything. As long as you have food, clothing and shelter, money is just a piece of paper. I am saying so because recently I started accepting order for cakes, not in a big way but in a small way. My intentions weren't to make money but to execute my passion without investing my own money in it. This cake thing was always in me. I loved to bake cakes and decorating it but what always kept me away from trying more or continuing it was sometimes cake turned rock hard or sometimes I failed to adjust the oven temperature or sometimes the cake burnt or sometimes the cream wouldnt whip up right or sometimes it curdled. Sometimes my lucky charm worked but there were tons of times my cakes were in a state that couldnt be fixed and thrown to trash. How many times my eyes have teared for my lost efforts were just innumerable. Hubs has always known what was happening with every cakes I tried but he never complained. It was Not just the cakes that got wasted but also money spent for it. Butter, eggs , cream are not free.. you definitely have to pay for it. But nowadays my lucky charm has started working and with Allahs grace people also have started appreciating my work and giving orders. I dont make much profit and I really Do Not bother about it because I am being benefited after each work because with each new experience I am learning new things. And that was my motive too, to learn things and getting to do more projects by accepting orders. Also when I am being paid I do not have to bother about spending from my own money in discovering new styles of cakes. So I am definitely being benefited right. But I am not sure, if such intentions and passion will remain always and if it will turn out to be a money making process alone some time. Or I am unsure even it I will get orders any more. Whatever it may be. Let everything happen for good. Check out my cake page here
Todays post is a  vanilla chocolate caramel cake with Dulce de leche frosting and ganache.

The cake is a rich one with three flavors of cake in one with dulce de leche frosting topped with some ganache. I suggest preparing the cakes and dulce de leche one day and preparing frosting, ganache and assembling of cake second day. The vanilla cake I used here is one already published in the blog as pista cake, but replace pista essence with vanilla. The caramel cake is a soft and spongy one and I recommend in baking two 6 inch cake tin or one 8 inch tin to reduce the baking time.

The chocolate cake I have made here is eggless version and adapted from same source as the caramel cake. All the cakes should be baked in same size cake tin.

Ingredients:

Vanilla cake- I used half of this recipe replacing pista essence with vanilla essence. also skipping the color.

For caramel cake: (recipe courtesy: Lakshmi nair)

• Butter- 100 gms
• Icing sugar- 1/2 cup
• condensed milk- 1/4 cup
• Eggs- 5
• sugar - 1/2 cup
• Boiling water- 1/2 cup
• All purpose flour- 1 cup
• Baking powder-1 tsp
• Baking soda- 1 tsp

Method:

• First you should prepare caramel by heating sugar in a pan. Once it melts completely and turns brown color keep the flame low and add boiling water. Mix with a spoon and boil for few seconds. Off the flame and cool.
• Beat room temperature butter and Icing sugar together. Beat well until light and fluffy. You can use hand whisk if you want. Add condensed milk and beat well once again. Keep aside.
• With another whisk of electric blender beat 5 eggs in a clean bowl. If using the same whisk used for beating butter, make sure its completely clean and free of any grease before beating eggs, else the eggs will not whip up.
• Beat the eggs till it doubles in volume.
• Add half of the beaten eggs to Butter, sugar mixture and fold the eggs gently.
• To this mixture add sifted flour mixture all at once and fold gently using a spatula till well incorporated.
• Add remaining beaten eggs and fold gently again.
• To this add the caramel sauce prepared earlier and mix everything till well incorporated.
• Transfer the cake batter to a greased 8" cake tin.
• Bake in a preheated oven at 170 degrees for 45 minutes or until skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

For eggless chocolate cake:

• All purpose flour: 11/4 cup
• Cocoa powder- 1/4 cup
• baking powder- 1 1/2 tsp
• Baking soda- 1 1/2 tsp
• Milk- 1 1/4 cup
• Powdered sugar- 1 cup
• coffee powder- 1 tsp
• Honey - 2 tbsp
• Sunflower oil- 3/4 cup

Method:

• Preheat oven at 180 degrees
• Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and baking powder and keep aside.
• Heat milk, coffee powder, powdered sugar and honey until just warm.
• Transfer this milk mixture to a bowl and add oil to it and beat using an egg beater till everything gets well incorporated.
• To this add sifted flour and cocoa mixture and beat well till no lumps are visible and everything gets well incorporated.
• Transfer the cake batter to a greased  cake tin lined with parchment paper or wax paper.
• Tap the cake tin on kitchen surface to knock air bubbles out.
• Bake in the oven for minutes 55 minutes or until skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

For Dulce de leche frosting:

• condensed milk- 1 tin (unopened can)
• Butter- 200 gms

Method:

• Make Dulce de leche(DDL) one day ahead as it takes time to cook and cool completely. Process explained below.
• Peel off the cover of condensed milk, but do not open the can. Place the can in a pressure cooker completely immersed in water. close the lid of the pressure cooker and keep on high flame. Once you hear the first whistle, reduce the flame to medium low and cook it for 25 minutes. (the condensed milk can be cooked in a vessel other than pressure cooker, but will take 3-4 hours and you need to keep on adding water to keep the can completely immersed). After 25 minutes, off the pressure cooker and do not open the lid or place under water for pressure to dissipate. leave it untouched. Once the pressure dissipates, Open the lid and take out the can and let it cool completely, else it will explode on opening of can.. This is DDL. Now you need to make frosting. So when you are making DDL keep butter outside the fridge at room temperature, so that butter is completely softened by next day when you prepare frosting.
• For frosting, Beat butter well. Add DDL and beat till everything are well incorporated.

Ganache:

• Dark chocolate or milk chocolate-100 gms (I suggest dark chocolate)
• Cream- 100 mls, Little less than 1/2 cup

Method:

• In a dry clean bowl, add chocolate chopped finely.

Heat cream in a heavy bottomed sauce pan on medium flame till it starts boiling from sides. Do not over heat the cream. Off the flame and add cream to chocolate, the chocolate should be completely covered in cream. Keep it untouched for a while and then mix slowly using a dry whisk. Keep mixing till you get a smooth lump free Ganache.

Assembling:

• Cut the top of all cakes to attain a flat surface.
• On a plate place the choclate cake, Put some frosting on top of it. Spread on entire surface.
• Place caramel cake on top and apply some frosting again.
• Now put vanilla layer on top. Cut off the sides of cake to get even size on sides.
• Frost the entire cake in frosting, smooth the side and top using an offset spatula.
• Pour Ganache on top, Allow it to drizzle on sides.. Make sure Ganache isn't hot while pouring over the cake else the frosting will melt.
• If you keep the cake in fridge it can be hard, so if refrigerating, before serving keep the cake out at room temperature for one hour.