Najwa’s chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and salted caramel (DF, GF, SF, Paleo)

• Preheat oven to 180 C then oil two 6” pans and cut 2 baking paper discs to cover the bottom. Place the paper on the oil so it sticks making sure there are no bubbles. Then dust in the inner sides (walls) with cocoa powder and and pat any excess out.
• Dry ingredients: Mix all the dry ingredients together in a big bowl, and mix with a whisk so that you get rid of any lumps.
• Wet ingredients: In another big bowl, add the vinegar to the milk and let it sit for five minutes. Then add all the remaining wet ingredients and mix with a whisk.
• Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix with a whisk for 2 minutes until it comes together in a nice glossy batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
• Once done, wait for 5 minutes and then take the cakes out of the pans and cool them on a cooling rack. The paper will stick to the cakes and can be peeled off easily.

This amount of frosting is enough to fill the two layers of cake and to frost the top and the sides. You can half it if you don’t want a lot of cream and only want to put some in between the two layers and on the top. But i figured that if you are going to make the cream and celebrate, why not make the entire amount? The cake is light and the cream is certainly light too.

• Place the coconut cream cans in the fridge for a minimum of 12 hours and take them out. This allows the cream to rise and solidify on the top. Open then and scoop the cream out.
• Add the sifted cocoa powder, sugar, vanilla and salt. Using a hand mixer, mix it all together until it is fluffy and homogeneous. Cover and leave in the fridge until you are ready to frost your cake.
• Using a small saucepan, add the coconut cream (no need to refrigerate), ghee, and date syrup. Bring the mixture to a boil on high heat and then reduce the fire to medium high.
• Separately in a tiny bowl, add the cornstarch and a couple of teaspoons of the caramel. Mix it well until there are no lumps left. Then add this back to the caramel and cook for 4 minutes, you will see the caramel thickening. Keep on mixing and do not stop. Once it thickens well and reaches the desired consistency, take it off the fire and add the vanilla extract and the salt. You can add more or less salt but 0.25 ts for me is enough.
• If needed you can run the caramel through a sieve to get rid of any cornstarch lumps. Pour it (while still hot) into a clean glass jar (the jam jars work well here). Leave on the counter to cool completely before closing. You can store the caramel in the fridge for 2 months).

Assembly

• Once you have prepped all the parts: cake, cream, caramel and cooled them all to room temperature, it is time to put it all together. You don’t need any fancy equipment, or tools. Just a cake stand (or a plate), a spatula (or knife), and a spoon.
• Place the first cake layer on the plate or cake stand. Try to centralize it. Then take the cream, and if it’s still cold from the fridge leave it out for a minute it will become smooth. Spoon some cream and spread it out. Try to aim for about 1 cm of thickness once it is spread out.
• Then take the next cake layer and place it on top of the cream. Add more cream on the top and smoothen it with a knife or a spatula. Add cream to the sides, the aim is to cover cake. Try to keep it even and as mess free as possible. Use a spatula or a knife. I didn’t do that as you can tell from the pictures, but it would have been nice had i made enough cream (that is why i doubled the amount for you). To get a nice final look, even out the cream on the top really well.
• Then, using a spoon, drop some caramel on the sides, allowing it to drip down. Add more on the top and cover the chocolate frosting completely.