Cake 4 CADS

Cake for CADS is a motivational tool used to encourage staff members to complete tasks.
The Staff member that completed the most tasks won a cake made by me.
The first Cake for CADS winner requested a chocolate cake.... here's what I came up with.




Four layer chocolate Caramel cake.

It is a monster, at least 1000 cals per slice and should most defiantly be shared for special occasion

For Vanilla and Chocolate sponge

225g very soft butter , plus extra for greasing
225g golden caster sugar
175g self-raising flour
85g ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
150ml pot natural yohgurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 tbsp cocoa powder

For Caramel and Caramel-choc sponge

225g very soft butter , plus extra for greasing
175g light muscovado sugar
50g dark muscovado sugar
175g self-raising flour
85g ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
150ml pot natural yohgurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp coco powder

To Assemble

397g can caramel (stocked near the condensed milk in stores)
140g dark chocolate

140g milk chocolate

300ml double cream

Instructions 

Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and line bases of 2 x 20cm sandwich tins with baking parchment.
1. For the Vanilla & chocolate sponges, mix all the ingredients, apart from the cocoa. Scrape half the mix into a second bowl and add the cocoa. Scrape into the tins and bake for 20-25 mins until a skewer poked in comes out clean.
2.Repeat step 1 for the Caramel & caramel-choc sponges, again leaving cocoa out of the first mixing, then splitting the mix in half and adding the cocoa into one batch. Cook as above.
3.While sponges are cooling, melt the dark and milk chocolate together in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Remove from the heat, stir in the cream and cool or chill until spreadable.
4.When the sponges are cool, spread a third of the caramel over the Vanilla sponge and top with the Caramel sponge. Spread over another third of the caramel and top with the Caramel-choc sponge, then the final third of caramel and top with the Chocolate sponge (don't panic if you mix up the layers, the cake will still look great when you cut in). Spread the chocolate icing over the whole cake to serve. It will keep in a cool place in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Special Mention (recipe taken from BBC GoodFood website)

To finish I also added shaved chocolate and a couple of edible silver balls to make it look extra pretty. This is a great cake and I hope to make it again soon, I was concerned that adding yoghurt to a sponge mix would be a disaster as I've never heard of this before but it creates an awesome texture and if you keep to the tin measurements bakes perfectly.