Salted Caramel Popcorn Cake

We’ve recently been challenged by Butterkist to come up with a cake that features one of their many popcorn flavours. As we love baking and we’re always up for a challenge, we were instantly on board. A couple of days later, we received a massive box of Butterkist popcorn and baking goodies. Amy was in seventh heaven and I instantly got my thinking cap on, the result: this indulgent salted caramel popcorn cake.

Salted Caramel popcorn cake:

Ingredients

For the caramel sauce:

200g brown sugar
6tbsp butter, unsalted
120ml cream
1tsp vanilla extract
1tsp salt

For the cake:

250g caster sugar
250ml sunflower oil
250ml cream
4 medium eggs
300g  flour
50g cocoa powder

For the filling:

250g mascarpone
3tbsp of salted caramel sauce

For the frosting:

500g mascarpone
3 cups of popcorn, we used Butterkist’s Toffee popcorn

Method:

For the salted caramel sauce, combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and melt over a low-medium heat. Whisk gently to ensure a smooth consistency while cooking for about 5 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180 °C/350F/Gas mark 4 and grease your springform (ca. 20 cm Ø).  Cream your sugar, oil, cream and eggs and carefully sift your cocoa powder and flour into the bowl and fold under. Pour into the springform and cake for about 32 minutes. Take out of the oven and leave to cool. Once cool, cut your cake into two even layers.

For the filling, simply whisk your mascarpone and salted caramel sauce until. Sandwich both layers with your frosting.

To make your frosting, whisk your mascarpone and a third of the caramel sauce. Cover the top and sides of your cake with your salted caramel mascarpone cream. Then mix your popcorn with 5 tbsp of the caramel, and carefully pour the remaining sauce over your cake.  Finally, decorate your cake with the popcorn and serve.

Tip: If you aren’t serving your cake immediately, don’t decorate it with popcorn until you serve. It might loose its crunch otherwise.

Have you baked with popcorn before? We’ve made up our own recipe for our salted caramel popcorn cake. If you are after some inspiration, however, check out lots of tasty popcorn recipes over on the Butterkist website.