As you may know, I love to bake cakes. Cakes and cupcakes are my forte, and this chocolate genoise cake was whipped up to celebrate the first birthday of this blog back in 2015!
A celebratory cake
And a birthday isn’t really a birthday without a cake now is it? So without further ado, here’s The Flavor Bender’s birthday cake – Coffee soaked Chocolate Genoise Cake with Coffee Caramel Frosting! Delicious chocolate sponge cake layers soaked in coffee and covered with one of my absolute favorite creamy frosting recipes – AMAZING coffee caramel buttercream frosting! Before I started this blog an year ago, I had a place on the Internet where I documented things I cooked and baked, but never really shared recipes, just pictures. And awful pictures at that. I knew cooking, baking and experimenting with food was my calling a long time ago, long before I considered anything else as something I would want to do for the rest of my life. But I never really thought it was something I could realistically pursue until my husband convinced me that I should go for it, probably because he couldn’t take another minute of my talking about it. And maybe also because he absolutely loved every thing I cooked/baked. 🙂 So I owe this to blog to Mr K, my wonderful husband, who encouraged me every step of the way to follow my dream wherever it might take me, and although right now I’m not sure where that might be, I still love doing what I do, and the chance to share it with you all! And I’m very proud of how far I have come. Especially in terms of food photography. My photos are still far from spectacular, but I’ve learned more in the last year than I did in all the years before that and since I got my very first point and shoot digital camera back in 2006!
Chocolate genoise cake
I wanted this cake to be light, and this genoise cake recipe is GREAT for victoria sponge cake. It’ll also be delicious in a trifle. If you like, you can use a boxed cake mix for convenience. The star of this cake however is the buttercream frosting! That deserves its own post, to be honest. From vanilla buttercream to chocolate buttercream, swiss meringue buttercream, chocolate swiss meringue buttercream etc., I’ve made a lot of buttercream frostings over the years, and this coffee caramel buttercream frosting is truly one of a kind. It’s seriously addictive, and I’ve had several people comment on how fantastic it was! Although it sounds like it’s going to be really sweet (caramel buttercream…), the strong coffee flavour mellows it way down. The burnt caramel and coffee give it a rich depth of flavour that ordinary frosting just doesn’t have. And as bit of a frosting snob/fanatic, I swear, if not for a great deal of self-restraint, I would have eaten the frosting by itself – all of it. 🙂
Recipe notes
Since it’s a genoise cake, make sure you soak the cake layers well. The cake is light, and it’s called a “sponge” cake for a reason. It can absorb A LOT of flavour! I soaked my chocolate genoise cake layers with coffee, because I am a coffee junkie – as I’ve mentioned many times before – but you can use a simple syrup as well. And with the frosting – I make a caramel sauce first. I caramelize white sugar till it turns dark amber in colour. I used the dry caramel method – this way it turns to caramel faster, so you have be near the stove and keep an eye on your sugar the whole time. I actually prefer this method over the wet caramel method, because I know my caramel won’t crystallize this way. See this how to make perfect caramel guide by David Lebowitz for tips on how to caramelize sugar using the dry method. For more information, you can also check out my guide to types of sugar, and my guide on cooked sugar stages.
Chocolate shards as decorations
As for the decorations – I made chocolate “shards” that were painted with cocoa butter. I thought about a drip decoration but it’s so overdone these days, so I decided to go for something that looked different and a little rustic. I love working with chocolate(check out my extensive archive of chocolate recipes!), and even though it’s not the most friendly beast to work with, when you get it right, it gives me a whole lot of satisfaction! I’m not going to share with you the tutorial for the chocolate shards today, but I definitely will at some point in the near future.
More delicious cake recipes
Classic vanilla cake Classic chocolate cake Ginger cardamom cake (Magnolia cake) Kiwifruit blackberry vanilla cake Devil’s food cake White coconut cake Banana layer cake Glazed chocolate bundt cake
I’m not sure if a cake can be both luxuriously rich and light at the same time, but this one seems to pull it off quite well. The coffee syrup soaked genoise sponge cake has a beautifully moist yet light crumb. And that frosting… oh that frosting. Smooth, soft, creamy, buttery, sweet… This is a frosting with character. It’s got layers of flavour, with the coffee and the burnt caramel and the buttery sweetness and all the rest of it. Even my husband – who isn’t a big fan of sweet things and isn’t too into frosting – thought that this was the best frosting I have made so far. It was a big cake, so there was plenty to go around. 🙂 When it came to the leftover frosting though, Mr K didn’t even stand a chance.
