Back in November, I posted about an Argentine-themed potluck , which inspired the making of homemade dulce de leche. Well, as it turns out, the dulce de leche was only part of the actual dessert – which ended up being a chocotorta inspired cake! (If you’re wondering what real chocotorta is, check out this recipe .) I ended up making a chocolate brownie coffee cake, layered with dulce de leche and coffee buttercream, and served with dulce de leche cream sauce. It sounds like a lot, but it’s actually pretty simple to whip together! Here’s the recipe.

INGREDIENTS
makes one (very tall) 6″ cake

For the chocolate brownie coffee cake;
270 g flour
70 g cocoa powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
175 g unsalted butter, softened
250 g sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
200 g chocolate, melted and cooled
200 mL strong brewed coffee, cooled to room temperature

For the dulce de leche + coffee buttercream;
500 g unsalted butter, softened
500 g icing sugar
150 g dulce de leche (recipe here if you want to make it, but you can just buy it in most supermarkets)
2 shots espresso, cooled to room temperature

For the dulce de leche cream sauce;
240 g dulce de leche
150 g cream cheese, room temperature
175 g heavy cream

DIRECTIONS

For the chocolate brownie coffee cake;
Preheat the oven to 180 C (~350 F), and prepare two “6 pans by spraying with oil and lining the bottoms with parchment. (The 6″ pans I use are 3” tall, so if you have shorter pans, you’ll probably need three)! Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and set aside.

Using an electric mixer on medium speed, cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, and continue mixing on medium speed until smooth. Pour in the chocolate and mix through.

Alternate adding the dry ingredients and the coffee to the bowl of the mixer, mixing only on low speed. (Beware of sneaky golden retrievers who just want to eat the batter). Divide the batter amongst the prepare pans, and bake for ~40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean.

Allow the cakes to cool completely in their tins on a wire rack.

For the dulce de leche + coffee buttercream;
Add the butter and icing sugar to the bowl of an electric mixer, and whip on high speed with the whisk attachment until light in colour and very fluffy (at least five minutes). Add the dulce de leche and whip through. Then add the espresso, one shot at a time, and whip through.

For the dulce de leche cream sauce;
In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together the dulce de leche and cream cheese.

In a separate bowl, whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form. Fold the whipped cream into the dulce de leche mixture. Refrigerate until ready to serve with the cake.

Finally, for the assembly;
Remove the cakes from their tins, level the tops, and split each cake into two pieces.

Stack each cake piece on top of one another, adding about a half cup of icing between each layer. Smooth the excess icing around the sides and top of the cake, so that the cake is fully coated in a thin layer of icing. Place the cake in the fridge for at least a half hour, before adding the final coat of icing.

For a little extra fun, I piped little mounds of icing all over the top of the cake (using a 1/2″ round tip) and drizzled it with caramel sauce! So delicious!

Nomnomnom :)

PS: Click here for the printable version of this recipe!