Photolicious: The Faux Martha's Salted Caramel Chocolate Cake

This year is the Relief Society’s 173^rd birthday!

So naturally we have an activity for our ward to celebrate this monumental event every year. Because there is cake served and because I love the making and consuming of cake… I volunteered myself to make this year’s birthday cake.

I scoured the many baking blogs I love so much and found the cake that would impress. I decided The Faux Martha had this really lovely Salted Caramel Chocolate Cake that I had not made yet, but it was on my list of cakes to try. The buttercream filling, chocolate ganache and the moist chocolate cake looked so tasty that it was a cake made for celebrating.

The Sunday before I had to present the cake which was on a Tuesday, I get a message from the activities coordinator touching base with me to make sure I’m still making the cake. She also informs me that I need to make sure to have enough for 30-40 people….and I then realize, I’m not going to have enough cake! Not baking down from a challenge, I decide to make double the recipe for the cake as my pans are about 9-10 inches wide. I decided I would need to stack them to give the illusion there would be enough cake and of course impress with presentation. The butter cream and ganache wound up being enough for the cake even with double the surface space.

I must say the Salted Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream was the hardest part of the whole assembly of this cake. I had to make the caramel by scratch like the rest of the cake, which I thought was not going to be so hard. It took me 3 times to get it right, the first two times I over heated the caramel and I burnt it. But when push came to shove, and it was the day of the event I was able to stack my cake 4 layers high, get all three components made, put together and presented in the best way possible. Yes I would have loved more time, but I was still pretty happy with the result, given the time and effort put into it.

In the end, all of the ladies loved it, there was enough cake for everyone and I was glad to be able to put a smile on everyone’s face. I felt accomplished and so blessed to have the opportunity to serve these ladies and share my backing talents with them.