Mud Cake with Salted Butterscotch

Hello everyone!

Since it is the weekend I thought that it would be great to share a dessert recipe with you. I made this mud cake with salted butterscotch yesterday and it was so good it blew my mind. Can I say that about my own cake? Well, I just did, only because it is. That is a fact.

I wanted to surprise my husband with a nice dessert since it was Friday yesterday. I usually try to sweeten up the start to his weekend by making something special or sweet on Friday night. His daily commute involves an hour long train ride as well as a ten minute bike ride (each way), so I like to have something special for him when he gets home on Friday night.

There was some leftover butterscotch in my fridge from making some butterscotch cupcakes last week. Since I had the leftover butterscotch I was trying to think of a dessert that could be paired up with it. What better indulgent dessert to serve than a soft, moist, chocolate mud cake that is filled and topped with salted butterscotch? I just thought that it would be an incredible combination. So that was just what I did. The butterscotch I had was regular butterscotch; all I did was warm it up again in a pan and added some salt in. I used dark chocolate and a tablespoon of instant coffee for the cake because I think coffee complements chocolate very well and enhances the flavour of the cake.

You do not need an electric mixer to make this mud cake, as no creaming is required. That suits me well as I still have not replaced by busted electric hand mixer. I also made the mud cakes using individual 3” rings. You can see a photo of the rings in my post for gluten-free orange poppy seed cake. I filled up the batter to ¾ full and the cakes came out really high and nice. You can just as easily make the mud cakes in little ramekins. Just be aware that since it is smaller, you may need to reduce the baking time a little. Conversely, if you wish to make this in a big baking tin, you would need to slightly increase the baking time.

If you are not a fan of salted butterscotch, just make regular butterscotch or chocolate ganache. Treat this chocolate mud cake as your blank canvas. They are best eaten warm so if it has gone cold, you can microwave it for about 30 seconds before serving.

Confession time - I made two of these beauties and I ate half a mud cake before my husband got home. How could I resist when they came out all warm and soft from the oven, just begging to be eaten. The warm salted butterscotch also just hit the spot. When I was editing the photos I might have just ate the other half. In any event, I am happy to report that this mud cake helped my husband to fall in love with me all over again. 

Recipe for Mud Cake with Salted Butterscotch

Prep Time: 20 minutes / Baking Time 35 minutes

I used individual round rings of 3” in diameter each / Makes 2.

Recipe for Mud Cake

Ingredients

125gm Butter

110gm Light Brown Sugar

80gm Dark Chocolate

150ml Water

1 Tbsp Instant Coffee

100gm Self Raising Flour

50gm Ground Almonds

10gm Cocoa Powder

½ tsp Baking Powder

1 Egg

Method

1. Preheat oven to 150°C and grease and line baking rings/tin.

2. Put butter, chocolate, light brown sugar and dark chocolate in a small pot and melt down over low heat. Slowly add in the water and stir, once the water is hot add in the coffee and stir to dissolve. Leave mixture to simmer over low heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Once done, remove from heat and pour mixture into a mixing bowl.

3. Sieve self raising flour, ground almonds, cocoa powder and baking powder together. Add the sieved ingredients into melted butter and chocolate mixture. Mix until evenly combined. Add in the egg and mix until just combined.

4. Pour mixture into baking rings/tin and bake at for 30-35 minutes. The cakes should be well risen and the smell would be amazing. As the mixture is quite moist, a skewer when inserted should not come out clean. That is fine as you want the middle of the cake to be a little gooey and not completely dry.

5. If you have not made your butterscotch sauce, you can make it while the mud cakes are baking. Recipe for Salted Butterscotch follows. Use a skewer or a chopstick to poke a hole in the middle of the mud cakes. Put butterscotch into a freezer bag (or piping bag – but I was lazy), snip off the end and fill the cakes with butterscotch. Drizzle remainder butterscotch over the cakes. Dust with icing sugar just before serving.

Additional Recipe Notes

*I used a bar of Belgian dark chocolate (70%) - not cooking chocolate. 

Recipe for Salted Butterscotch

30gm Butter

70gm Dark Muscovado Sugar (or light brown sugar)

90ml Single Cream (or Whipping Cream/ Double Cream)

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

¾ tsp Salt (add in slowly, tasting as you go along)

Method

1. Place a saucepan/pot (make sure is quite deep as the butterscotch will splatter) over medium-low heat. Add in the butter and melt. Once melted, add in the sugar and stir until evenly dissolved.

2. Pour in the cream slowly, stirring to incorporate. Leave the mixture to simmer for 5 minutes stirring occasionally. Add in the vanilla and salt. Remove from heat and allow to cool.