Easy chocolate and caramel cake without oven and with ingredients you have at home.
Last Updated on
Total: 32 min Diners: 4
Lust and gluttony come to us through this chocolate and caramel tart that could not be easier to prepare if you have just enough patience to do it. It reminds us directly of the chocolate and dulce de leche cake so famous in all Argentine birthdays but we give it a slightly more French twist to get a cake with a crunchy base and a tremendously mellow filling that can almost remind us of caramel chocolates but with top quality ingredients. Yes, when we talk about pastry we also need to have good flours, good chocolates, good butters… and everything will turn out better.
Ingredients
For the base (18cm mold):
Butter, 65 g Chocolate Maria cookies, 105 g Cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon
For the toffee:
Brown sugar, 200 g Water, 50 g Honey, 40 g Butter, 55 g Whipping cream, 60 g
For the chocolate ganache:
Melting chocolate 70%, 100 g Whipping cream, 60 g Salt flakes, 1/2 teaspoon
Step 1
Mash the cookies with the help of a food processor. Melt the butter and mix it with the cookies and the teaspoon of cocoa. You can do this with regular cookies, adding more cocoa to the dough. Or you could also make a chocolate shortcrust pastry.
Step 2
Prepare a baking pan with baking paper on the base, grease the edges as well. If it is a low mold it will be easier the task, because this chocolate cake is not very high, but you can also do it in a high mold and limit with the help of a spoon the edges. Make the entire base of the mold, going up to the edges, flattening well with a spoon all the cookie mixture. Gradually from the center outwards, giving the best possible shape to your base so that it is homogeneous. You will have to leave a border of about 2 centimeters. Take to freeze for 1 hour.
Step 3
While the base is freezing we can prepare the toffee. To do this we mix the water with the sugar and bring it to a boil, once boiling (without stirring with any instrument more than the back and forth of the saucepan) lower the heat and let cook at minimum for 4 minutes until a dense caramel.
Step 4
Add then to the caramel, already off the heat, the butter cut into cubes until it melts completely. Once integrated, add the cream and mix well. Let cool completely in the refrigerator for about 1 hour.
Step 5
With the toffee well chilled and the base well compacted, help us to remove the walls of the mold with a thin metal spatula or a knife. Just to know that the toffee is already unstuck. Fill the base with the toffee, keeping in mind to leave a little space for the last layer of ganache. Take again to the freezer to cool well for 20 minutes.
Step 6
To make the ganache, bring the cream to the boil and once it boils, pour it over the finely chopped chocolate. Let it stand undisturbed for 2 minutes. Then with the help of a spatula mix well until you get a dense cream.
Step 7
Finish the cake with our ganache layer, as evenly as possible. Personally I like to take the mold from the edges and “dance” it so that the ganache expands naturally. You can use a spatula or a knife to help. Return to the freezer for at least 1 hour.
Step 8
Before eating, take the cake out for 30 minutes at room temperature. Finish on top with a little salt flakes that will give it the perfect contrast. To cut it well, heat the edge of the knife in very very hot water, always dry before cutting the cake.
Notes
The secret of this chocolate and caramel cake lies in the patience to respect the cooling times that are crucial for everything to remain firm and the cake does not crumble as well as preparing a base with love and care for which I always recommend a well greased mold unmold, thus avoiding possible scares later when the mold is removed. The baking paper always helps a lot in the base.
Another thing to note is the density of the toffee for which we will need a fairly dense caramel before adding the butter and cream. If it is very complicated to do it with brown sugar because of its color, you can replace it with normal sugar and thus see how the color evolves to toasted so that it does not burn, because it would be bitter.
