We couldn’t pick a better way to kick off our blog than by honoring our amazing father. This adventure started by traveling across the state for our dad’s 70th birthday. We wanted to make a cake that really represented him, but was different from the norm. When we asked what his favorite cake flavor was we already knew the exact answer we were going to get, German chocolate. You can’t go wrong with German chocolate, but we wanted to mix it up a little. Our parents always have fun snacks around their house, usually some amazing find from Costco, so we decided to play off of that and came up with a chocolate, caramel, pretzel cake. This cake consists of chocolate cake layered with caramel buttercream, salted caramel and crushed pretzels. We then topped the cake with a caramel and chocolate ganache drip, piped buttercream décor and of course pretzels.
Once we found out there could be as many as 75 people at the party we knew one cake wasn’t going to cut it so we decided to make matching cupcakes to go along with it. We used the all same recipes for the cupcakes, but assembled them a little differently. Prior to baking the cupcakes, we sprinkled a pretzel crumble on top that baked in beautifully. Once cooled we topped them with the caramel buttercream, drizzled with salted caramel and ganache and added a pretzel for the finishing touch.
Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 3 large eggs at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup hot water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray three 6-inch round cake pans with cooking spray and line with parchment paper.
- Combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt into the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, oil, eggs, water and vanilla.
- With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and mix a little longer to make sure everything is fully incorporated.
- Divide the batter between the prepared pans and bake for about 20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.
Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tbsp corn syrup
- 2/3 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 – 1 tsp salt depending on how salty you want it
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
Instructions
- Place the sugar, water and corn syrup in a sauce pan. Place over high heat and stir until the sugar begins to dissolve.
- Continue to boil without stirring until the mixture reaches a medium amber color and then remove from heat.
- Carefully whisk in the cream. The caramel will foam, but continue whisking and then add the salt, vanilla and butter until smooth.
- Transfer to a heat proof container to cool to room temperature.
Notes
Caramel Buttercream
Ingredients
- 3 cups (6 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
- 6 cup confectioners’ sugar sifted
- 2/3 cup caramel sauce
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp salt
Instructions
- In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter. Start off at a low speed and then gradually increase until the butter is light in color and
smooth. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the bowl as needed. - Add the sugar, one cup at a time, mixing at a low speed until fully incorporated before you add the next cup.
- Add the caramel sauce, vanilla and salt and beat at a low speed for
about 20 seconds. Increase the speed to high and beat for about 5 minutes until
the mixture is perfectly smooth and creamy. Stop the mixer a couple times to
scrape the bowl.
Chocolate Ganache
Ingredients
- 4.5 ounces semi-sweet, milk or dark chocolate finely chopped
- 3 ounces heavy cream
Instructions
- In a small sauce pan over medium heat bring cream just to a boil.
- Remove from heat and pour over chocolate. Let stand for 5 minutes without stirring.
- Stir with whisk until smooth. Let cool to room temperature.
To Assemble the Cake
Trim the top of the cake layers so they are level and flat. Place the first cake layer on a cardboard round or cake plate. Top the cake with a large scoop of buttercream and smooth with an offset spatula. Drizzle on the salted caramel and top with crushed pretzels. Place the next cake layer on top and repeat. Once all three layers are stacked crumb coat the cake and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Frost the cake with the final layer and refrigerate before adding the caramel and chocolate drip. Decorate to your hearts desire and enjoy!
- We recommend serving the cake the same day you assemble it so the pretzels don’t get soft. If you need to make the cake a day in advance try making a pretzel crumble by combining 1 cup crushed pretzels, 4 tablespoons melted butter and 2 tablespoons sugar and bake on a cookie sheet at 325 for about 7 minutes.
Hello there! Thank you for this beautiful post. I am interested in making the cupcake version of this cake for my finacee for his birthday. I wondered if you first baked the pretzel crumble and then placed the already-baked crumble on the cupcakes (thus double-baking it), or whether you assemble the “crumble” and bake it for the first time when you put it on top of the cupcakes…?
Thank you!–
Amanda 🙂
Hi Amanda! We did not prebake the pretzel crumble. We crushed the pretzels and then after we added the batter to the cupcake liners we sprinkled the crushed pretzels on top. We plan to update this post with our own chocolate cake recipe, but in the mean time you can find a couple chocolate cake recipes on our blog. Our favorite is the black magic cake, but for this cake we would recommend using natural or Dutched cocoa in place of the black cocoa. Happy baking!
Ahh! Thank you so much! So, you didn’t combine the pretzels with butter or anything else as described at the bottom–just raw crushed pretzels atop the unbaked cupcakes?
Sorry to be so annoying, but I am so grateful for your help; I really want these to come out well. Your blog is wonderful! <3
Hi Amanda,
For these particular cupcakes we just added the raw crushed pretzels to the top of the cupcakes. We’ve experimented a lot since we made this cake and have become a fan of adding a “crust” to the cake and cupcakes (the baked mixture you referred to). In this case you will want to make and bake the pretzel crumble. Make sure your pretzels are very chopped. Once the crumble has cooled break it up and add to the bottom of each cupcake liner and press down as if you were creating a pie crust on the bottom of each liner. You will probably need about 1 tablespoon per liner. Then poor the batter in and bake as usual. We did a very similar idea in our strawberry rhubarb crisp cake. So happy to hear that you are enjoying the blog!!! We would love to hear how the cupcakes turned out! Feel free to tag us in any posts.
Thank you so much for your kind and helpful responses! I am a true novice, as you can tell from my photo linked, but these were a lot of fun to make and were ultimately a hit ^_^. I’ll be happily recommending your blog to everyone!
https://i.imgur.com/ccciazA.jpg
Those look great!!! So glad everyone loved them!