Chocolate Buttermilk Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting and Honey Caramel Corn

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Hi hi!! I have a super fun, super delicious recipe to share with you today, which comes from my Internet friend Charlotte’s new book, Just Desserts! Charlotte is an incredible baker and makes the most beautiful food, and her book is jammed full of delicious dessert recipes, accompanied by a very healthy dose of puns. Best combo ever, if you ask me. The book itself is incredibly beautiful - Charlotte has such an amazing eye for design and colour, and ties it all in so perfectly within her recipes. She has thought of everything - from the beautiful photos to the tiny illustrations, to the incredible front cover opening where she’s wearing a dress that matches CUSTOM WALLPAPER. I’m so excited to try more recipes in there! Congrats lady - I hope you are so, so proud. To the rest of you - you’re going to want to grab a copy ASAP! xx

When deciding what to make, I kind of went for a mashup of two of her ideas - the first thing that jumped out at me was a beautiful salted caramel shortbread slice, covered in a giant mound of caramel corn, which would have to be in my top 10 fave foods. I was tempted to make that, and then I flicked to the recipe for this Chocolate Buttermilk Cake with a Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting. In her book Charlotte has dotted hers with chocolate covered pretzels, but I spied an opening for some caramel corn, so here we are - Charlotte’s very perfect chocolate buttermilk cake, covered in honey caramel corn. Dream team.

The cake itself is incredibly simple - I avoided the temptation to make it more complicated than it needs to be (I was going to make a layer cake), and kept it as is, and I am so glad I did, because it is perfect. I have a tendency to go full extra on recipes, making multiple components and layers, when sometimes simple is best, and this cake is a great example of this. There’s something super beautiful about a single layer cake, with a simple layer of icing and some decoration on the top, and this cake has inspired me to hold back a little more often and keep it simple sometimes.

The recipe starts with a very dark, luscious chocolate buttermilk cake, which is moist but also fluffy, and the perfect vehicle for the chocolate cream cheese icing that it gets smothered with. Both components alone are super simple to make - the cake is a stir together situation, and then the cream cheese frosting is a ‘whip the heck out of everything’ kind of frosting. Frosting just a single layer of cake is very, VERY satisfying, just so you know. I’ll be doing it a lot more often.

I then scratched the caramel corn itch I had in my brain by making a simple honey caramel corn to go on the top. The process is the same as most caramel corns - pop some corn, make a caramel, pour it over, bake it to finish, but I included a little step which I think is a game changer in caramel - adding in some freshly popped, non caramel popcorns at a few points along the way. The first lot goes in just after you have coated the popcorn in the caramel, and the second lot after it has baked in the oven. The plain popcorn mixed in there gives a really lovely mix of plain and caramel corn, which gives variation in both taste and texture, and you get little perfect bites where a caramel piece and a plain piece have joined together to be delicious, delicious friends.

A few wee tips:

• I made my own caramel corn which isn’t as hard as it looks, and is so good with the honey, but store bought would also work so perfectly in this situation too!
• I made the cake two days ahead and stored it wrapped tightly in the freezer until I was ready to frost it.
• I also made the caramel corn two days ahead - just make sure you store it in a super airtight container.
• Charlotte uses a 22cm spring form pan for her cake, but I just greased and lined an 8” cake pan which worked great too! Make sure it has sides about 3” high though as it does rise up a little.

Made this recipe and love it?

If you made this recipe then I would LOVE for you to leave me a review below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram if you make it!

A note on salt and oven temperature

It is important to note the type of salt that is called for in a recipe. I use Diamond Crystal salt throughout my recipes - if you use a different sort of kosher salt or regular table salt you will need to adjust accordingly as some salt is 'saltier' than others. Morton's salt is twice as salty, so you will need half the quantity. Same goes for a regular table salt. I am working to get gram measurements throughout my recipes for salt but still getting there.

All oven temperatures are conventional unless otherwise stated. If you are baking on fan / convection, you will need to adjust the temperature. An oven thermometer is a great investment to ensure that your oven is the correct temperature.

Tools and equipment

For a list of my go-to tools and equipment, I have a post you can refer to here.

Why is this recipe in grams?

I post my recipes in grams as it is the most accurate way to bake. Cups are not only inaccurate but they vary in volume worldwide. There is no way for me to provide one cup measure that works for everyone. However, posting in weight fixes this issue. If you would like the recipe in cups you are welcome to convert it yourself via google, but please do not ask me to do it for you as I am not comfortable providing a recipe using a method that I have not tested. Baking with a scale is easy, accurate, and also makes cleanup super simple. Here is the scale that I use if you would like a recommendation! Here's to accurate baking! If you would like to scale this recipe or convert for another pan size, use my calculator!

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