BISCOFF S’MORES CAKE
“This was so worth making .”
- Cake:
- 450 ml cold coffee (make 2 – 3 cups of your choice coffee and measure out 450 ml)
- 390 ml vegetable / sunflower oil
- 450 g buttermilk
- 6 eggs
- 650 g plain cake flour
- 690 g castor sugar
- 120 g cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Vanilla buttercream:
- 750 g soft unsalted butter
- 1300 g icing sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
- 6 – 9 tablespoons milk
- Swiss meringue:
- 2 egg whites
- 170 g caster sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
- Ganache:
- 50 – 60 g cream
- 75 g dark chocolate
- Extras:
- approx. 50 g melted dark chocolate
- approx. 200 g Biscoff spread
- Biscoff cookies and crumbs
Use four 20 – 21 cm cake tins.
Pre-heat oven to 175 °C.
In large bowl put coffee, oil and buttermilk and give that a little whisk. Add to that the eggs and whisk until they are broken up. Now add the dry flour, castor sugar, cocoa powder, bicarbonate soda and salt. Whisk together until nice and smooth. Divide equally into the four greased tins. Bake for 20 – 30 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.
Let them cool down and very gently level each cake.
We will be using vanilla buttercream, Biscoff buttercream and chocolate buttercream.
All will be made from one batch of buttercream.
Use soft butter which will whisk much easier.
Put all the butter in a stand mixer and whip until pale and fluffy; about five minutes. Add icing sugar in two halves and beat well between each addition.
Then add the vanilla extract and pinch of salt. Add milk gradually until consistency is spreadable. Do not put all the milk in at once for it can make your icing too sloppy.
Store in airtight tupperware container not to get crusty.
Biscoff buttercream:
Put about 400 – 500 ml vanilla buttercream in a bowl and add as much as you like of the melted biscoff spread. Mix well. We are going to use this to fill our cake. Put a dollop onto cake and smooth out but do not let it go over the cake. Use a pellet knife and with a little pressure run it around in the middle (about 1 – 2 cm from side) to make an indent. Into the indent we are going to add some melted biscoff spread and smooth it out. Then sprinkle biscoff crumbs onto that.
Repeat with all the layers.
Crumb coat cake with vanilla buttercream and put it in the fridge for about 45 minutes to be nice and firm.
Make ganache before you start to topcoat the cake.
Heat up the chocolate and cream in the microwave a few seconds at a time (ganache thickness can vary due to different cream consistencies).
Use vanilla buttercream for the topcoat. If it stiffened up a bit, just put in the microwave for few seconds at a time. Give it a good stir to get rid of any air bubbles.
After coating cake, smooth out the edges of cake. Put back in fridge for about 10 minutes before applying decorations.
Chocolate buttercream:
Take about 300 ml vanilla buttercream in a bowl and add the 50 g melted chocolate. Mix well. Take a small amount on the end of your pellet knife and make a band at the bottom of the cake. Do not worry about it to be too neat we want it to be a little rocky. Take a scraper and smooth it out.
Melted ganache:
Do exact same thing as above. The ganache would have stiffened up a bit.
With pellet knife very carefully take a little at a time to make band at bottom of the cake.
Once it is on, cover it with biscoff crumbs. Put the remaining ganache in a piping bag. If it stiffened up too much, just warm it up in the microwave for few seconds. Go around the edge of cake letting in drip off the side of cake, leaving space for second drip coating.
Put melted biscoff spread in piping bag and do the same with dripping around cake.
Swiss meringue:
Place the egg whites with the castor sugar in a bowl, mix together and put bowl over pot with boiling water. Do not let the top bowl touch the water. Whisk until mixture is nice and smooth and sugar is dissolved. Take of the heat and pour into a stand mixer with a whisk attachment. Whip on high speed till nice and glossy. Add the vanilla and salt and mix few seconds.
Put on top of the cake making it a bit messy and pointy.
Torch the meringue with blow torch till nice and brown.
Finish it off with some broken biscoff biscuits.
Posted by: Frances Smith
Photo: Frances Smith
