Spiced pumpkin cake with salted caramel cream cheese frosting and coconut cream dark chocolate ganache

I've been wanting to try this cake for ages now and have even had a tin of pumpkin purée and a tin of caramel sitting in the pantry waiting for their chance to be whipped up into a cake layered with chocolate ganache.  But for a cake like this with lots of ingredients and layers and two different icings, I need a special occasion as a good excuse to make it. When we were invited to a barbecue for a friend's birthday today I knew this was the perfect opportunity to have a go at it. 

The cake itself was utterly delicious - delicately spiced and moist like a really good carrot cake, which of course always goes perfectly with cream cheese frosting, but this time, cranked up a gear by adding caramel and sea salt to the frosting. I also made use of my recent discovery of dividing a chilled can of coconut milk, using the liquid as a milk substitute in the cake batter for added flavour, then melting the solidified cream with dark chocolate to make the most amazing ganache you've ever tasted. To maximise the amount of ganache and frosting, I sliced each cake in two, so that when the cake was cut, it revealed stripes of four layers of orange pumpkin, caramel cream and rich dark chocolate. 

However, I hadn't quite thought how suitable a cake with so much frosting would be to make - and transport - in the middle of a heatwave! Determined not to be deterred (honestly, I've been dreaming about this cake!) I devised an ingenious travel solution - a big, clear plastic box with a layer of bags of ice which I wedged around the trunk of the cake stand, acting as both a cool box and a way of keeping it wobble-free. It worked - and will from now on be my default way of transporting cakes!

Ingredients

For the salted caramel cream cheese frosting
1 lb cream cheese
1 tin caramel

1 ½ tsp sea salt, finely ground

For the spiced pumpkin cake

10 oz caster sugar

6 eggs
1 cup (8 fl. oz) sunflower oil
1 tin (15 oz) pumpkin purée
2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tin chilled coconut milk, strained liquid only
15 oz self-raising flour

3 tbsp hot chocolate powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp cinnamon
1 ½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp ground cloves

For the coconut cream dark chocolate ganache
8 oz dark chocolate, chopped
1 tin chilled coconut milk, solidified cream only

To decorate

Chocolate sprinkles and edible gold balls

Method

1. Begin by making the salted caramel cream cheese frosting so that it has as long as possible to chill in the fridge before icing the cake. Simply scoop the cream cheese and caramel into a mixing bowl, add the sea salt and beat with a wooden spoon until smooth and well combined. Cover with clingfilm and refrigerate.
2. Next make the pumpkin cake: preheat the oven to 175°C and grease and line two 9-inch round cake tins.
3. Place the sugar and eggs in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until fluffy and tripled in size.
4. Beat in the oil, pumpkin purée and vanilla.
5. In a separate bowl, measure out the flour, hot chocolate powder, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves and stir until well combined.
6. Open the chilled can of coconut milk upside down and strain the liquid into a jug. Reserve the solidified cream for making the ganache later.
7. While the stand mixer is on, alternate adding spoonfuls of the dry ingredients with splooshes of the coconut milk and beat until blended.  
8. Once all the dry ingredients and coconut milk is added, divide the batter between the two cake tins and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
9. Remove the cakes from the oven and let cool in their baking pans for 10 minutes before inverting them  onto cooling racks.
10. Meanwhile, make the coconut cream chocolate ganache: Scoop the coconut cream into a saucepan with the chopped chocolate, and heat gently stirring constantly until it is melted and well combined. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.
11. Once the cakes have cooled completely, slice each one into two layers of similar thickness.
12. Assemble the cake by placing the bottom of one of the cakes on a cake stand (reserve the other bottom for the top). Spread a quarter of the chocolate ganache over the top of each cake and refrigerate for 10 mins to solidify.
13. Once the ganache has set, remove from the fridge and spread a layer of the salted caramel cream cheese frosting over the first layer. Gently layer up the cake, sandwiching each with the frosting, and finishing with the upturned bottom of the other cake for a flat, smooth top.
14. Once all layers of the cake have been assembled, spread a thin layer of the cream cheese frosting around the sides (a ‘crumb coat’) and refrigerate for 10 mins.
15. Finally, spread the entire cake with the remaining frosting, and decorate with chocolate sprinkles.

Adapted from a Food and Wine recipe I first saw on the Use Real Butter blog - with added hot chocolate, vanilla, coconut milk and coconut cream ganache (and tinned caramel rather than home-made - there is quite enough to do making this on a hot day!)