Miso caramel cake

December 4, 2021 

   

When Soon-Tzu Speechley tweeted about this cake last month, I googled around for the recipe and kept a tab open. I'd not heard of its creator, Sybil Kapoor, before but she's a well-established chef and food writer in the UK. It took a few weeks before I had the right moment to make her cake, but I'm very glad I did.

The main event here is white miso. It's stirred into a rich caramel sauce, and the sauce is beaten into a buttercream. That buttercream gets slathered all over a plain vanilla butter cake. The entire experience is very buttery!

A few cooking notes: I think the caramel sauce recipe makes almost exactly double the quantity needed for the buttercream, so halve it if you like. I'm actually looking forward to slathering the leftover caramel on icecream later on. Second, I baked all of the cake mixture in one tin because I don't have two matching ones. I gave it lots of extra time and it passed the skewer test when I took it out, but I could see it was still a bit wobbly in the centre and that section collapsed as it cooled (you can see how thick the buttercream is, to compensate, in the photo above). I'll bake the cake longer still next time. Third, I could have put a bit more buttercream between the layers, because there was plenty to cover the top and sides (I'm pretty inexperienced icing cake sides!).

If there is a teeny downside to this cake, it's that you don't get to experience a warm, soft, fresh-from-the-oven piece. Rather, the buttercream sets in the fridge and the cake becomes firm. This texture reminds me a bit of birthday cake, and is its own pleasure.

Miso caramel cake

(a recipe by Sybil Kapoor, available via House & Garden UK)

miso caramel sauce (approx double the quantity needed for the cake)

250 g caster sugar

4 tablespoons cold water

2 tablespoons golden syrup

150 mL double cream

70 g butter, diced

1 teaspoon lemon juice

4 tablespoons white miso 

sponge cake

225 g butter, at room temperature

225 g caster sugar

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

4 eggs

225g plain flour

1 scant tablespoon baking powder

miso caramel icing

1 cup miso caramel sauce

280 g butter, at room temperature

70 g icing sugar

Make the miso caramel first. Place the sugar, water and golden syrup into a medium saucepan and set them over low heat. Swirl the pan occasionally, until the sugar is melted. Increase the heat and and bring the mixture to the boil, continuing to boil until the mixture turns golden brown and ultimately dark brown. Take the saucepan off the heat and whisk in the cream, then the diced butter, and finally the lemon juice. Allow the caramel to mostly cool before beating in the miso paste. Set the caramel aside.

Next, bake the sponge cake. Preheat an oven to 160°C. Line one or two matching round cake tins with baking paper, and lightly spray them with oil. Beat the butter in a large bowl until fluffy, then beat in the sugar. Beat in the vanilla, and then the eggs, one at a time. Sift over the flour and baking powder and mix until well combined. Pour the cake batter into the cake tin(s), smooth over the top, and bake until risen, golden brown, and springing back when lightly pressed. Kapoor recommends 25 minutes for two cakes, and my one cake was still a bit underdone in the centre after 40 minutes (50 might have been better). Allow the cake to cool completely.

Finally, prepare the icing. Beat together the caramel sauce and butter. Sift in the icing sugar and beat the mixture until fluffy and very smooth. If you have one cake, slice it gently through the centre to create two layers; if you have two cakes then you have two layers ready to go. Place one cake layer on a serving plate and spread it with no more than a quarter of the icing. Top it with the second cake layer. Spread the top and sides of the cake with the remaining icing. Make it as smooth or swirly as you like, but aim to properly seal all of the cake away with icing. Refrigerate the cake for at least 1 hour before serving.