Hello all my coffee worshiping friends! What’s better than a steamy, frothy cup of cappuccino on a chilly fall afternoon? A steamy, frothy cup of cappuccino WITH a slice of my fluffy, rich, decadent cappuccino cake of course!
If you’re like me and really want to go all out you can top your rich, decadent cappuccino cake off with a divine salted bourbon caramel Swiss buttercream, dripping puddles of salted bourbon caramel sauce AND hazelnut caramel cream puffs! Now if that doesn’t float your boat then I just don’t know if we can be friends! Well ok, maybe we can be friends, but just to warn you, I’m the kind of friend that corrupts you with decadent treats. Seriously though, if you are a coffee lover you really should try this cake! Not surprisingly, it’s one of my most popular wedding cake flavors.
Now aren’t you just dying to sink your teeth onto that?!
Pssstttt! you can get the recipe for my famous Salted Bourbon Caramel Sauce recipe here!
COFFEE ALL THE THINGS!!
Really, I will try to put coffee flavor in just about anything, mmmmm…
Coffee is near and dear to my heart for many reasons. Not only because I think I would cease to exist without it. To give you a little insight on my affection for all things coffee I’m going to share with you something I wrote for part of a writing challenge during a blogging course I took. We were asked to make a list of our 10 favorite ingredients that we couldn’t live without if dropped on a deserted island. Then we had to pick one of those ingredients and write about why it’s our favorite. This is what I wrote:
If I were stranded on a deserted island and could only have one thing on my top 10 foods list, hands down I would pick coffee. In a heart beat. No questions asked. Yes, all the adages apply. Coffee is life, coffee runs in my veins etc. Funny thing is, I don’t actually drink a ton of coffee. But it is essential. One cup in the morning to get me going and a cup in the afternoon to keep me going. Coffee is my gas, it is my go juice.
It all started with my grandparents. I can remember as a very small child sitting at the old wooden farmhouse style breakfast table in the kitchen. I had a little red Mexican style child’s chair that they set on a kitchen chair to boost me up so my chin wasn’t hitting the table with every chew. It had yellow flowers painted on it with a worn wicker seat and back rest. Grandpa sitting next to me with his newspaper and his mug of steaming, black coffee, no sugar no cream. Just pure, unadulterated goodness. Grandma in front of the stove frying up bacon and flipping buttermilk pancakes.
But it was the smell of the dark, black coffee in grandpa’s cup that I loved. I always got my tiny little A&W root beer mug half full of milky coffee. It was only 2 inches tall and three quarters milk, one quarter coffee. But it made me feel like an adult to be sitting with grandpa sipping coffee together in the bright morning sunshine. The rich, nutty aroma steaming up to tickle my nose.
To me coffee smells like morning. It smells like golden, early morning sunshine slanting in the kitchen window. It smells like yawning and stretching and taking a deep breath, the sleep fading from your muscles and energy coursing up through your veins. To me, coffee smells like a fresh new day, a new beginning. If I could only use one word to describe the smell of coffee it would be ALIVE. I could ALMOST get away with just smelling it and not even drinking a drop. Almost.
Here is a little meme I created a few years ago. See, I told you I coffee all the things. Even memes.
Now, how about some light as air, melt in our mouth, hazelnut creampuffs smothered with crunchy hazelnut caramel?
Ok I am being a tease now, Because you are going to have to stay tuned for that recipe. See how I sucked you in and now you will need to subscribe so you can get notified when my next recipe comes out? Tricky huh? But really, I plan on doing a whole series on flavored cream puffs. Like these! And chocolate creampuffs filled with peppermint whipped cream dipped in peppermint ganache… and pumpkin spice cream puffs… and huckleberry mousse creampuffs… oh it’s a long and yummy list. All you need to do is subscribe and you will be the first to know when I post new recipes!!
Oh and here is my favorite ingredient for getting that deep, rich, luscious coffee flavor in all my desserts! This stuff is da bomb!
Medaglia D’Oro Instant Espresso Coffee
Also here are a few little tips that may come in handy in your baking process
Evenly dividing you cake batter into your cake pans
And now, without further ado, let’s get to this cake recipe!
HAPPY BAKING FRIENDS!!
Have a Sweet Day!
| Prep Time | 20 minutess |
| Cook Time | 28 minutes |
| Passive Time | 1 hour |
| Servings |
servings
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- 2.5 cups all purpose flour
- 2.5 cups granulated white sugar
- 2.5 teaspoon baking powder
- .5 teaspoons salt
- 1.25 cups whole milk
- 2.5 ounces salted butter
- 5 large eggs room temperature
- 4 tablespoons instant espresso powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or vanila extract
Ingredients
|
|
- Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees
- Prepare three 8 inch cake pans by greasing then lining the bottom with parchment paper. I also like to use a rose nail in the center of the pan for more even baking
- pour milk into a microwave safe container had heat for one minute. You want to milk to be slightly warm, not hot
- melt the butter in the microwave then add to the warm milk and mix
- stir in vanilla bean paste and espresso powder. Mix until espresso powder is dissolved. Set aside
- Beat eggs in large mixing bowl with paddle attachment for 4 minutes. Do not skip this step!
- While eggs are beating, In a separate bowl, mix together flour, salt and baking powder.
- When eggs have been beating for 4 minutes add sugar then continue beating for another 4 minutes until light and fluffy
- Add dry ingredients and mix on low until just combined, scraping the bowl once. Do this step as quickly as possible
- Pour in warm milk mixture and continue to mix on low until just combined, scraping the bowl once. Do this step quickly also and do not over mix. These last two steps should take less than a minute
- divide your batter evenly into the 3 pans and bake for 25-28 minutes until the middle springs back when touched, or a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let stand in pans for 10 minutes. Then turn out onto wire cooling racks and cool completely
- When completely cool fill and frost as desired
If you would like make the salted bourbon caramel Swiss buttercream use my base Swiss meringue buttercream recipe and add my salted bourbon caramel sauce to flavor it. It's pretty much to die for. Another alternative is Hazelnut Swiss meringue buttercream. I use this for the hazelnut flavor
aaannnd now you can hazelnut all the things! Yum!!
Omg I love everything about this cake. I need a slice right now for my cup of coffee. ??
Love the recipe, thank you for sharing! Trying to use the functionality on the recipe to reduce the batter amount to two 8″ inch layers instead of three. How many servings is that considered?
Hmmm that’s a bit tricky. If you reduce it to 10 servings you will get enough batter for 2 layers. But you are going to get some funky measurements like 1.56 cups. It’s probably going to be easier to make the full batch and bake the extra batter as cupcakes. Who couldn’t use a few extra cupcakes in their life, right? ??
Hi, thank you for sharing. Is 1.25 cups of milk same as 1 1/4 cups? Or how many oz.?
Hi Pat. Yes 1 and 1/4 cup which is 10 ounces ?
Hi Pat … i love your recipe I’m an obsessed coffee drinker too will try to bake it soon. May I ask what’s a “rose nail”? I often have this unleveled cake when baking can’t figure out what to do about this. Thanks for sharing.
OMG I’m so sorry Shani … I called you “Pat” What an embarrassing mistake ☹️
Thank you for sharing this recipe Shani. Made it tonight, easy to follow and it turned out exactly as you describe – fluffy, rich, decadent. Love the moist, spongy texture.
Just had one issue – I noticed when mixing in the final steps there were some lumps and after baking, there were white bubbles/pockets scattered throughout the cake.
Do you have any advice on this?
Hi Grace, I’m glad you enjoyed the recipe. I sounds like you have small lumps of unmixed flour in the batter still. Could be your flour was clumped before adding to the egg/sugar mix or you needed to mix just a few seconds longer.