Hey guys! Whats happening! I have a monster of a cake coming in for you. I made this cake for my best friend from boarding school 18th birthday.
Because we all went to boarding school it meant we all lived in different places in New Zealand. So she lived in Rotorua which is an hour and half from Eureka. I got on a bus, with a box and the cake in it and traveled down to her farm to spend the weekend with her for her birthday. I have a few priceless memories from this birthday weekend.
So we all got ready the girls, and I took pictures of everyone with Sonya, I had recently upgraded to the 85mm 1.4G and was loving it. Her Dad was also a photographer so I loved going down to their place to talk about the latest equipment.
Anyway her Dad loved making homemade food, he made his own apple cider, own syrups and his own alcohol shots. I remember just being in their garage dancing and her Dad brought down some shots and I took probably about 4. I do not know what was in those shots he made (his homemade alcohol) it's content was probably the same as jaegermeister. Also I didn't drink at all when I was a teen, I never was in the cool group at school, always went home on weekends and baked and played with my animals on the farm. While all the cool girls at school went to parties every weekend and drank a lot.
So that absolutely threw me off the radar, it was my first time properly drinking and probably an 18th wasn't the best time to try. About 30 minutes after the shots I blacked out on the front step of the house. Sonya's mother Rose bless her soul, tucked me into bed and kept checking on me to see if I was breathing she was so worried. I felt so bad to give her that stress of teenage kids overdosing, over drinking. But I remember waking up at 3.30am, all the girls were sleeping in their spare living room with mattresses on the ground. Has Sonya got her cake yet?! Everyone was like Linz it's 3.30am the party is over. Haha so I missed all my best friends 18th and didn't even get any cake.
Thankfully Rose had given her the cake she had brought from the cake shop, so I gave Sonya my cake in the morning and we cut it up and sang happy birthday to her. We had cake for a hangover breakfast. I will never forget my first blackout over alcohol. So young and so immature.
Anyway onto the cake Sonya loves anything Caramel. Salted caramel, regular caramel, thick gooey caramel, thin drizzling caramel. So this is a caramel lovers cake for sure!
It is caramel cakes layered with dulce de leche and alfajore biscuit crumbs, iced with salted caramel swiss buttercream. Drizzled with caramel, garnished with chocolate alfajores.
I love chocolate alfajores, they are probably my second favourite biscuit. They originate from Argentina and I remember my exchange student who we hosted for a year in New Zealand brought them with him when he came out to NZ.
This is me and my youngest brother and my exchange student outside the Cardrona Hotel in Wanaka. We skied every day for about 4 days with my Dad on Cardrona. It was one of the few times I got to see the snow and go skiing. It used to be a big tradition in my family, but when my parents got older they got more tired and couldn't take us too the snow anymore. It was also super expensive and my parents couldn't afford to take us anymore.
So his name was Julian! He was super awesome, and helped teach my brothers spanish while he learnt english. I always loved it because he didn't know how to cook a single thing. He didn't even know how to do his washing. So when I was cooking he would always come in and try learn and I would always teach him.
This is Julian and I making mallow balls. They were the first thing I ever learnt to make from my older brother. I remember when he used to make them he would always get me to help by cutting the marshmallows in half. I can still remember the recipe off the top of my head 10 years later we used to make these together so much. So I showed Julian because it is practically fool proof baking.
The mallow balls are chocolate biscuit balls, which have a marshmallow centre and are coated in coconut. They are so delicious and I remember making them on the weekend and packing them in my lunchbox and taking them to school in my lunchbox. Everyone would be asking me to make them some. We always played a game in our family, all us kids would grab a mallow ball and guess the colour marshmallow we were gonna have, if we got it right we were allowed to have a second mallow ball. I find my childhood is super special I can still remember small things like this I used to do with my brothers and family.
Omg yum! I love it!
So back to the cake and the biscuits. That is how I found out about the delicious biscuit alfajores. So yummy! I feel like they complement this cake well because it is full on caramel, the nougat biscuit breaks up the flavours and the chocolate adds some bitterness to it because it is dark chocolate.
These biscuits are so delicious and stay super moist for so long because they have dulce de leche in the middle and are encased with chocolate. So it is hard for air to get to the biscuit to dry the biscuit out. But make sure you store them at room temperature for best flavour and chewiness.
But if you want to learn how to make the elements on this cake, stay tuned for all the recipes...
Recipe:
Chocolate Alfajores:
linzxvi.wixsite.com/linz/single-post/2015/03/08/Chocolate-Alfajores
Caramel Drizzle:
linzxvi.wixsite.com/linz/single-post/2016/1/21/Salted-Caramel-Cake-Caramel-Popcorn
Dulce De Leche:
linzxvi.wixsite.com/linz/single-post/2015/03/08/Chocolate-Alfajores
Swiss Meringue Buttercream:
Caramel Cakes:
linzxvi.wixsite.com/linz/single-post/2016/04/13/Chocolate-Butterfly-Tunnel-Cake
(make double mixture)
Salted Caramel Buttercream:
1/2 cup caramel
1 teaspoon salt (adjust to get a nice contrast of sweet to saltiness)
1 batch of swiss meringue buttercream
Method:
Mix the caramel and salt with the buttercream, until you have a uniform flavour.
Garnishes:
Alfajore Biscuits
Dulce De Leche
Dark 72% Melted Chocolate
Alfajore Crumbled Biscuits
Assembly:
Slice the top of your cooled cakes, and cut them vertically in half, to create more layers.
Starting with the first layer, place some icing on the cake board and stick the first layer to the cake board, Place some icing on top, and crumble some alfajore biscuits and drizzle some melted chocolate over top.
Place the second layer of cake on top. Spread some icing on top leaving a small circle area to dollop your fresh dulce de leche into the middle of the cake.
Repeat with the next cake layer alternating from alfajore crumbs and chocolate from dulce de leche filling.
Crumb coat the cake completely and allow it to chill in the fridge until set.
Remove from the fridge and begin your final frosting layer. Once completed return to the fridge to set the icing again.
Warm up caramel drizzle and spoon drop the drizzle down the sides of the cakes. Begin decorating and putting your garnishes on. Cut your already prepared alfajore biscuits and stack them on the cake, crawling up one side. Pipe meringue kisses of dulce de leche and frosting.
Your all done, wooh la xx
