Mini Chocolate Cakes with Salted Caramel Cream

If you follow me you know I really love chocolate. It’s true that I’m used to tasting the best desserts in the world, but homemade chocolate cakes also make me very happy.

I recently published a recipe for salted caramel cream, here is a wonderful recipe where you can also use the caramel cream.

Chocolate cakes filled with salted caramel cream and coated with a rich cocoa buttercream. Of course they can be made without the caramel cream or without the buttercream, but the combination of all the textures and flavors is so so good, so try to follow all the steps.

Mini chocolate cakes with salted caramel cream
6-8 serves, silicone muffin mold (6 or 8 cavity each)

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Ingredients

Chocolate cakes:
165 g sugar 
200 g all-purpose flour, sifted
30 g cocoa powder, sifted
10 g baking powder
pinch of salt
90 g egg (around 1.5 M egg)
160 g buttermilk
110 g canola oil (attention, g not ml)
3 g vanilla extract 
125 g dark chocolate. chopped

Salted caramel cream:
100 g sugar
100 g heavy whipping cream
5 g vanilla beans (optional)
75 g butter in room temp’ cubed
3 g Kosher salt

Cocoa buttercream:
155 g butter (very softened)
280 g confectioner’s sugar, sifted
30 g cocoa powder, sifted
30 g heavy whipping cream
pinch of salt

Preparation

1. Chocolate cakes: Preheat the oven to 210 degrees Celsius.
2. In a medium bowl sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Stir to combine. Set aside
3. In a large bowl whisk eggs, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla until combined.
4. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir to combine.
5. Fold in chocolate chips, stir to combine.
6. Fill the chocolate cake batter into the mold, almost to the top.
7. Bake for about 5 minutes at 210 degrees and another 15 minutes at 180 degrees, until the cakes are firm to the touch.
8. Remove from oven and let cool to room temperature. Remove from mold.
9. Make a hole in each cake using a round pastry tip. The hole should be about 1 cm in diameter and up to two-thirds the height of the cake.
10. Salted caramel cream: In a medium heavy-duty saucepan heat sugar, until it melts into a brown amber-colored liquid.
11. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, heat the cream and vanilla until simmering.
12. After the sugar turned into caramel, pour the boiling cream into the caramel pot through a sieve. Attention! The caramel bubbles and rises to the top. It is best to remove the pot from the heat source for a few seconds, so that the caramel does not slide. Return to the heat source for a few seconds while stirring until a smooth cream is obtained.
13. Remove from heat, add butter and salt and stir until smooth. For a very smooth caramel cream it is recommended to grind with a blender rod.
14. Cool the cream until it’s firm but still easy to Pipe. Transfer to a pastry bag.
15. Pipe the caramel cream generously into each hole.
16. Cocoa buttercream: beat the butter for about 3-4 minutes, until light and creamy (you can use a hand mixer).
17. Add confectioners’ sugar, cocoa powder, heavy cream and salt. Beat on low speed till combined, then increase to high speed and beat for 1-2 minutes.
18. Transfer the cocoa buttercream to a pastry bag with your preferred tip (I used a wide serrated pastry tip). Pipe the buttercream over the cakes.

Bon-Appétit
Sharon