You really must try this cake! It is B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L and DELICIOUS!!

This cake was an extra special creation that I created for my lovely mum’s birthday this year. It is a vanilla caramel sponge cake that is gluten free (so even though the cake is SUPER RICH, it is less heavy on your stomach). Sandwiched with a creamy, vanilla buttercream, a thick salted caramel sauce and crushed up speculooos Biscoff biscuits (this is optional if you want it all to be gluten free). The heart shape cake is smothered in this soft and fluffy buttercream, topped with gluten free pretzels, a large salted caramel drizzle and some lovely mounds of speculoos Biscoff biscuit spread.

So lets get started……

First of all you will need to make the fluffy vanilla caramel sponge.

Sponge ingredients

• 420g or 2 ½ cups of gluten free self raising flour
• 2 cups of caster sugar
• 1 cup of salted butter
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup of double cream
• ½ cup of milk
• 2 tbsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp caramel essence
• 1 tsp salt
• 2-3 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Pre-heat the oven at 165 degrees Celsius. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder (to get rid of any big lumps), and then mix them all together in a bowl. In a standing mixer, add the butter, vanilla extract, caramel essence, and sugar, and beat together on a low to medium speed. Once mixed, add the eggs and beat together again until combined. Now slowly add the sifted dry ingredients spoon by spoon (to make sure all the dry ingredients mix evenly with the wet ones), and mix together until smooth and creamy.

Divide the mixture evenly between 2 baking tins (I used some special heart shape tins that were approximately 20cm by 20cm), and bake in the oven for 30 minutes (or until a skewer comes out of the cake dry and clean). If the skewers come out a little wet, pop the cake back in the oven for 3-5 minutes and check the skewers again and make sure they come out clean and dry. Once the cake is ready, take it out of the oven and let it cool completely in the tins.

Once the cakes have cooled completely, it’s now on to the creamy vanilla buttercream icing….

Icing Ingredients

• 4 cups of icing sugar
• 1 cup of soft unsalted butter
• 3 tsp of vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp of milk

To make the butter icing lovely and fluffy, I beat the butter in the standing mixer on a medium speed for 5 minutes. I then add half of the icing sugar to to standing mixer bowl, and mix on a medium speed for a few more minutes (I make sure to start the speed very low, so the icing sugar doesn’t go everywhere and THEN, once it is less powdery, I turn up the speed). I then repeated this with the other half of the icing sugar. Your mixture will be quite tough now, so this is when I add the vanilla extract and the milk. 2 tbsp of milk should suffice, but, if  you need 1 more tbsp of milk to make your mixture a little looser, that is fine too!

Once this is done, it is now the assembling part of the cake!

Take the cakes out of the tins and place on a large piece of baking paper (it is then easier to move the cake around when icing it). I then added a layer of delicious salted caramel! For my caramel, I used the Bonne Maman Caramel Spread,  mixed it with a few tsps of salt (to your liking – I like my salted caramel quite salty), and 1 tbsp of pure maple syrup.

You can but this online or in a variety of supermarkets (Buy here). This whole jar with the salt and maple syrup will be enough for the inside and the outside drizzling.

I layered a few tbsps of the caramel onto the top of half of the cake, then added a few more tbsps of buttercream on top of that, and then added  3 crushed Biscoff biscuits.

I then topped this cake with the other half of the cake, and it was ready for icing. I iced the cake with a thin layer of icing called a ‘crumb coating’ (which is the first layer of icing). This is the layer that fills in the middle dip of the cake where the sandwich fillings are, and also smooths out any cracks. It doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth, but it should have a uniform, even coat. Once this layer is complete, I transferred the cake to the fridge for 30 minutes for the icing to set a little

After 30 minutes, it is time for the second layer of buttercream icing to give the cake a beautiful and smooth finish.  Once I had finished this layer, I transferred the cake to a serving dish of my choice. Once this is done, it is TOPPING TIME! My first topping was 3 ice cream scoops of the delicious caramelized speculoos spread.

My second topping was the crunchy caramelized Lotus Biscoff (speculoos) biscuits and salted gluten free pretzels. I crushed up 3 biscuits and a handful of salted pretzels, and sprinkled them over the center of the cake. I then placed 2 whole biscuits on the top.

After that, I warmed up my salted caramel mixture in the microwave for 20 seconds, to make it slightly more runny (easier for drizzling). Once it was ready, I added lovely thick drizzles of caramel to the top of the cake.-TIP- I used a spoon and dropped blobs of caramel on the edge of the cake (all the way around), and let it run/drip down the cake’s sides.

On top of the caramel, I added some fresh sea salt to enhance the AMAZING ‘sweet and salty’ flavors even more!  Now your cake is ready to eat and ENJOY!!!!!!!

-TIP- If you want it to be completely gluten free, then you can swap the Biscoff biscuits for some lovely caramel gluten free biscuits, and miss out the scoops of spread on top (or maybe replace it for almond butter scoops instead).

This cake is truly delectable and will keep you coming back for more! It is perfect for a birthday or celebration, or even for a spectacular dinner dessert!

Please do try this recipe – I know that you wont regret it!!

If you do, please do let me know your thoughts and send me your own creations!

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Sponge ingredients

• 420g or 2 ½ cups of gluten free self raising flour
• 2 cups of caster sugar
• 1 cup of salted butter
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup of double cream
• ½ cup of milk
• 2 tbsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp caramel essence
• 1 tsp salt
• 2-3 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Icing Ingredients

• 4 cups of icing sugar
• 1 cup of soft unsalted butter
• 3 tsp of vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp of milk

Salted Caramel Ingredients

• Bonne Maman Caramel Spread Buy Here
  
• a few tsp of sea salt
• 1 tbsp of pure maple syrup

Toppings

• Lotus Biscoff biscuits (I just bought a pack and kept the remaining for future snacking) or any speculoos biscuits
  
• 1 jar of Lotus Biscoff spread Buy Here
• Sea salt

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 Love Kitchen Olivia xx