Rolo Chocolate Brownie Cake

After the disaster that was my Twix Cake experience I thought I would be avoiding anything chocolate and caramel-related for a long time. But caramelly, chocolately goodness is an evil temptress and I was itching to make a Rolo covered cake. Rolos are an awesome baking ingredient. I mean, look at these beauties. I had also promised Tomred a birthday cake for today (Happy Birthday Tomred!). Considering the fact that for Tomred's birthday last year I came up with one of my favourite inventions ever, the Tim Tam Cake, this Rolo Cake had big shoes to fill.

About 5 seconds after deciding to make this big-shoe Rolo Cake for Tomred's birthday, I forgot all about it. Completely, totally forgot about it until I was just starting to wake up yesterday morning. A little, nagging thought was poking the edge of my brain and stopping me from getting out of bed to make the banana scones I was planning and then OH SHIZZ I remembered about the cake. I then spent the rest of the morning running around my suburb trying to find ANYWHERE that sold Rolos, because (as per usual) the one thing that I desperately needed was nowhere to be found. I may have been a little too excited when I finally found them and bought about 10 tubes.

When I finally got around to making this cake, I realised that it would not be a cake for the faint-hearted. Two layers of fudgy brownie cake (adapted from Lisa's PX Brownie Cake), with a pack of Rolos baked into each layer, a (salted) caramel (dulce de leche to be specific) filling just like a Rolo, covered in a milk chocolate ganache and topped off with a mountain of Rolos. Yep. I won't even try to pretend this isn't decadent and over the top. But I DID try to make it less sickly-sweet and unbalanced by halving the sugar and eggs in the cake. But there is a lot of butter, which is always something I always freak out about when I make a brownie recipe. I used salted butter in the cake and sea salt in the dulce de leche, and made the ganache milk instead of dark chocolate to make it less rich. In the end it's still quite rich, but not enough to make you feel totally ill after a slice. Or three. But one slice is enough!

It was so much easier boiling up a can of sweetened condensed milk to make the caramel this time around, rather than worrying about candy thermometers and hot sugar syrups. And it's also so easy to spread swirls of 'rustic' (*cough* lazy & messy *cough*) ganache on the outside. If you're wondering how you're able to see a slice of this birthday cake before the birthday boy has seen it; my workmates and I have an unspoken agreement. They help me finish off most of the baked goods that I make for this blog no matter how strange my experiments are, and they also understand that every birthday cake they get from me will probably have a slice pre-removed for blogging purposes. Hopefully they'll enjoy this cake as much as all the other cakes minus one slice that they've tried.

Rolo Chocolate Brownie Cake with Caramel Filling

(makes one 20cm cake, adapted from spicy ice cream's PX Brownie Cake)

400g (about 3.5 sticks) butter (I used salted but unsalted is fine too)

200g (7oz) dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

4 large eggs

200g (1 scant cup) caster sugar (superfine sugar, using white sugar is fine too)

200g (about 1 2/3 cups) plain flour

2 tubes Rolos + (optional) 4+ tubes Rolos to decorate the top of cake

1 can (395g/14oz) dulce de leche (instructions on how to make it here) or store-bought thick caramel
Note: you can replace the dulce de leche and put a layer of Rolos in the middle of the cake instead, now that would be crazy awesome.

For the chocolate ganache:

400g (about 14oz) good quality milk or dark chocolate, finely chopped (I used milk)

300ml (1 1/4 cup) pure/pouring cream (min 35% fat, heavy whipping cream in the US)

Preheat the oven to 150°C (300°F), grease and line 2 x 20cm springform tins (or you can bake one cake after another if you only have one tin). Melt butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering, stirring occasionally until smooth. Whisk eggs and caster sugar in an electric mixer until thick and pale (about 3-5 minutes), fold through chocolate mixture then fold in flour until just combined. Pour batter into the prepared tins, smooth top and (if you wish) press rolos over the surface of each cake (1 pack for each) and bake until just firm to touch (25-30 minutes). Cool completely in pan, then very carefully transfer one cake to a serving dish. If you are making your own caramel, make sure you prep it ahead of time so it is cool and ready to be spread at this point.

Whisk dulce de leche to remove any lumps, add a couple pinches of crushed sea salt if you would like to have salted caramel filling. Whisk until combined, then spread a generous layer of caramel over the top of the first cake. Refrigerate this for at least 30 mins, this will keep your dulce de leche firm. Carefully sandwich the second cake on top (upside-down). Don't worry if either of your cakes crack, icing covers everything. Prepare the ganache; place chopped chocolate in a large heatproof mixing bowl. Place cream in a small saucepan over medium heat and bring just to the boil, then remove from heat and pour hot cream over the top of chopped chocolate and leave in bowl for 5 mins. Use a whisk to bring mixture together, if there are still unmelted lumps of chocolate after this, you can place the bowl over a pan of simmering water and stir until it is completely melted. Chill in the fridge until thick but spreadable and just under room temperature (I sped up this process by placing the bowl in the freezer and whisking the mixture every 5 minutes until it was ready). Using a spatula, spread ganache over the top of the cake. Decorate cake with extra Rolos, I chopped half of them in half so you could see the caramel innards. Can be served immediately, or stored in the fridge until ready to serve. Can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for several days.