[Food] Salted Caramel Popcorn Cake #keepitlocal

I don't think locally sourced ingredients have ever looked so good! I've worked with East of England Co-op a few times and every time I do the ingredients I get to work with become more varied. When I went shopping for the ingredients this time I was really surprised that so much of the produce was locally sourced. I didn't know that I am only 1 1/2 hours away from beautiful sea salt, one of my foodie essentials.

In fact it was the sea salt that inspired my recipe. Because we all know what's the best use for salt! To load it with caramel. 

Of course!

I'm not going to lie when salted caramel was first a thing I didn't really get it, putting salt in something sweet can't work that well. Oh how wrong I was. It's a glorious combination and it works so well together. So naturally I did what you should always do with caramel and pair it with a cake, popcorn and chocolate. The best thing is the eggs in the cake are locally sourced, as is the chocolate and popcorn. I baked this cake at the weekend as we were having a big family BBQ so I knew that it would get eaten. However it is very rich and you would only want a small slice, you know it's true if I'm saying it. So we took leftovers round to my mama's for a cuppa the next day.

This fortnight 30th May until the 12th June the East of England Co-Op are celebrating sourced locally food and it's a great event to be involved with. Take a look at their site for more info.

Salted Caramel Popcorn Cake

- Serves 16 - 

250g baking butter, softened

250g self raising flour, sifted

100g dark brown sugar

100g caster sugar

50g granulated sugar

4 medium eggs, (I used Havensfield)

250g salted butter

500g icing sugar

1 tbsp semi-skimmed milk

300g tinned caramel

a good pinch of sea salt ( I used Maldon)

50g popcorn (I used Algy's Kernels and popped my own but you could use a bag of ready popped corn)

25g milk chocolate, melted (I used Hadleigh Maid)

- Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC/Gas 4.

- Grease and line 3 20cm loose bottomed cake tins.

- In a large bowl combine the baking butter and sugars and cream together until fluffy.

- Add in one egg and a quarter of the flour and combine. Keep doing this until all eggs and flour are in the mixture.

- Pour the mixture evenly into the 3 tins. Bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

- Whilst waiting for your cake to cook make up the popcorn, according to pack instructions.

- Leave the cakes to cool completely.

- Make up the butter cream by combing the icing sugar, salted butter and milk. Mix until creamy and lump free. Set aside.

- Pour the caramel into a small bowl and combine with the sea salt. 

- Place one of the sponges onto a serving board. Dollop a layer of buttercream over the top and a layer of salted caramel. Place the second sponge over the top of this and do the same.

- Place the third sponge on top and cover with buttercream. If you have enough buttercream left (you should have) spread buttercream around the sides too.

- Pour the caramel over the top and allow it to drip down the sides. Place the popcorn over the top. I piled it up in the centre of the cake but you could put it wherever you like.

- Drizzle over the melted chocolate.