Well, four weeks has flown by and it's back to school with a bump for the boys (and me!) We had a fun last day yesterday and treated ourselves to seeing Home, even enjoying the entire cinema to ourselves :) The boys thought this was fantastic (the film and having the whole screening for just us!) Then back home in the afternoon to make an end of holiday treat for the boys.
The recipe for this Butterscotch Cake comes from Treatology by Wilton and I was directed to it by the fantastic Man Bakes Cake. This is an American recipe and uses shortening in the buttercream (I use Trex here in the UK). This is the first time I've used shortening in a buttercream like this and having tasted it, I have to say that I'm a full-butter buttercream kind of girl. The cake itself is light and moist; the buttercream with chocolate chips and butterscotch is tasty (as mentioned, in my humble opinion would be improved by 100% butter | 0% shortening); but the winner of this recipe for me is the delicious butterscotch ganache which is added to the buttercream to give it a butterscotch flavour and then the pure ganache is drizzled over the top. This part is definitely a keeper!
Next time I make this, I think a chocolate cake would be pretty tasty with full-butter butterscotch buttercream (what a mouthful!) and then the butterscotch ganache over the top. Or even transformed into cupcakes would be super tasty too with a drizzle of the butterscotch ganache over the top. Yum!
I didn't manage to get many photos of the this before the boys dived in with a large slice each - although it was for them to celebrate the end of a fab holiday so who can blame them?!
Butterscotch Cake (from Treatology by Wilton)
Ingredients
Butterscotch Cake
- 340G PLAIN FLOUR
- 2 TSPS BAKING POWDER
- 1 TSP SALT
- 170G BUTTER
- 160G DARK BROWN SUGAR
- 3 EGGS
- 2 TSPS VANILLA EXTRACT
- 240 ML MILK
Butterscotch Icing and Ganache
- 300G BUTTERSCOTCH CHIPS
- 120ML DOUBLE CREAM
- ¼ TSP SALT
- 230G BUTTER
- 115G SHORTENING (I USED TREX)
- 375G SIFTED ICING SUGAR
- 50G CHOCOLATE CHIPS
Method
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees
- Lightly grease 3 baking tins - the recipe calls for a Wilton 6 inch Cake Pan Set but I used 3 7-inch cake tins
- In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt
- In a separate bowl, beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition. If the mixture looks like it's curdling a little, add a tablespoon of the flour mixture
- Add the vanilla and mix well
- Add one third of the flour mixture and mix until just combined and then add half of the milk
- Repeat ending with the final flour addition and mix until just combined - don't over mix otherwise this will toughen the mixture
- Divide evenly amongst the tins and bake for 20 minutes until a skewer comes out clean
- For the ganache, combine the butterscotch chips, cream and salt. Then microwave for 1 minute and stir. Continue to microwave in 30 second bursts (this stage took me a further 2 minutes). I then stirred the mixture until it was almost melted but there were still traces of unmelted butterscotch chips so I kept heating it at 15 second bursts until the butterscotch was smooth.
- Put the butterscotch to one side and allow to cool
- In a separate bowl, beat the butter and shortening and then add one third of the icing sugar on medium until well mixed. Continue until all the icing sugar is incorporated.
- Add 2/3 of the cooled butterscotch and beat until well combined
- Remove around 2 cups of the butterscotch buttercream and put to one side
- Add the chocolate chips to the original bowl of buttercream
- Then level the cakes if necessary and prepare to assemble
- Put one of the cakes on a plate and then add half of the chocolate chip buttercream spreading it to the edge of the cake.
- Top with the second cake, the remaining chocolate chip buttercream and the final cake.
- Then use the remaining non-chocolate chip buttercream to cover the top and sides of the cake and refrigerate until the icing is set
- When completely chilled, take the remaining butterscotch and blast it in the microwave for 10-15 seconds and then drizzle over the top of the cake
- Optional: I took some of the leftover non-chocolate chip buttercream and piped a few swirls on top and then scattered some chocolate coated popping candy on the top