Dulce de Leche Cake

I love dulce de leche, it’s basically caramel in a tin. I became a fan (many) years ago when backpacking in South America and the love affair has grown. Back then, we ate it on fresh bread rolls for breakfast. Carbs and sugar heaven 😉

This recipe is by Rachel Allen, I do like her cake recipes – especially this one. It is from her book, ‘Cake’. I’ve tried a few recipes from it and all have been successful.

I was tempted to put a salted caramel twist on it, but decided to keep it as is, so that the kids would be guaranteed to like it too. Next time, eh!

Cake ingredients:

175 g butter, softened. (I use salted)
100 g soft light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
200 g dulce de leche
2 eggs
100 g ground almonds
175 g self-raising flour
25 g flaked almonds, toasted (I left these out)

Filling and icing ingredients:

50 g butter, softened. (I used unsalted)
175 g dulce de leche
1 tsp vanilla
150 g icing sugar, sifted

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 C (160 C fan). Grease the sides of two 7” sandwich tins and line the base with a disc of parchment.
Cream the butter until soft in a large bowl or in an electric food mixer. Add the sugar, vanilla extract and dulce de leche and beat the mixture for a good few minutes, until the mixture is smooth and light.
Whisk the eggs together in a small bowl for a few seconds or just until mixed, then gradually add these to the creamed butter mixture, beating all the time. Tip in the ground almonds, then sift in the flour, gently folding until combined.
Divide the mixture between the tins and bake for about 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of each cake comes out clean.
Remove from oven and allow to cool in tins for 10 minutes, then loosen round the edges using a small, sharp knife and carefully remove the cakes before leaving on a wire rack to cool down completely.
To make the filling and icing for the cake, beat the butter with the dulce de leche and vanilla extract until very soft, then gradually add the cinig sugar and beat until smooth.
Place one cake upside down on a serving plate, then spread over a third of the icing. Place the second cake on top, right side up, then spread the rest of the icing over the top.
Decorate with toasted flaked almonds if you wish. I used rolos instead.

Cakemum tips/Observations:

This recipe contains nuts in the form of ground almonds, but I’m sure if you replaced them with flour it would still work well.
Dulce de leche is also known as caramel. Carnation brand sell it, Aldi used to sell it sometimes too, though I haven’t seen it there in ages.

Happy Baking

De (aka thecakemum)

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