A wedding cake with dulche de leche

So, I went wedding dress shopping with my sister over the weekend. It was lots of fun…so much so, that I’m thinking I may just blow our house deposit on a divorce and second wedding!

Anyway, wedding dress shopping inevitable leads to other wedding-related discussions like bridesmaid dresses (thankfully my sister has fabulous taste, so no fuchsia nightmares!!!) and yes, cake. Her fiancé wants something super simple (a plain vanilla cake), whereas she wants something a little more gourmet. Our discussion led us to thinking how she could incorporate her fiance’s Argentinian heritage into the cake. She wanted a fancy topper, however, it was going to be a little on the $$$ side. What could she do? Then the answer came: dulche de leche.

For those poor souls who are yet to experience the heaven that is dulche de leche, it is essentially condensed milk, heated until the sugar caramelises. Traditionally, it’s done on the stovetop in the can. Those lucky enough to be living in the US can simply buy it off the shelf. Us poor Aussies have one of three options: make it ourselves (and that’s NOT in the spirit of my baking ethic!!), going to an Argentinian specialty shop and buying a can (expensive and inconvenient) or using Nestle Caramel Top ‘n’ Fill. I’m going to warn you now, it’s so delicious that you’d quite happily descend into a diabetic coma eating the entire tin. And I’m also going to go out on a limb and say that it’s even BETTER (yes, better!) than condensed milk. It’s like if caramel and condensed milk had a baby.

Canned heaven

Canned just-as-good heaven

Anyway, enough about dulche de leche (I’m drooling now). Well, not enough…I have to explain how it comes into the cake. The idea was a rich vanilla cake with dulche de leche in between the layers. Not only simple, but Argentinian. I took it one step further…what if the cake looked like a giant alfajore? Alfajores (pronounced aff-a-HORE-eh) are magical butter biscuits with dulche de leche in the middle, the sides rolled in coconut (or coated in chocolate or icing…depends where in South America you come from). So, you can see how this cake could be an alfajore wannabe. Simple vanilla icing on the top (cos it’s a cake after all!)

Mmmmm....alfajores...

How could I not accept this challenge? So, Saturday afternoon I decided I’d have the cake ready for Sunday night dinner. But you have a child, I hear you exclaim. How will you get it done? Well, here’s how I did it.

Sunday morning, Destructor and I went to the shops at 8.30am. I grabbed two packs of vanilla butter cake, top ‘n’ fill and all the other bits and pieces I needed for the week. By the time I got home, Destructor was pretty tired and grumpy. He was walking like a drunk, but still wanted to play, can you believe it? So, I put him to bed (much to his disgust) and into the kitchen I went.

I used a Green’s Butter Cake mix for this adventure. I know I rave about Aldi, but I really didn’t have the energy to battle Aldi with a toddler! So, I got the best Woollies had to offer. To be honest, I was pretty disappointed with their range, but that’s another story for another day. I decided to bake two separate cakes, so I mixed the batches separately.

Double the price, but it'll have to do!

Both cakes came out nice and golden brown, so I went about levelling out one of them (to be the bottom cake). I then popped a whole can of Top ‘n’ Fill in the microwave (in a bowl…not in the tin!!) for a little bit just to smooth out the consistency. Then, I used the vast majority to fill the cake. I may have eaten a little bit as well (I told you it was good!!). I used the extra to go around the sides of the two cakes.

One thing that I found amazing was that my two cakes didn’t match up exactly when I put them together. Baked in the same tin, they weren’t the same size! I think it had something to do with cutting the top off the bottom cake. Not sure. Will figure it out.

I then rolled the cakes in some shredded coconut, pressing some on afterwards for good measure. To decorate the top, I thought I’d try a technique I’ve seen all over Pinterest – covering it in piped roses. I already know how to do roses, so how hard could it be?

For the icing, I used the packets that came with the cakes. I had to add a bit more icing mixture and milk to get enough icing, but no dramas there. And off I went. The roses looked super sweet! I had to pipe some stars to cover the bits of naked cake peeking through, but that was fine. I sprinkled some love hearts left over from the engagement cupcakes, plus some glitter (cos who doesn’t like glitter) and voila – a cute cake full of magic!

The verdict: needed more Top ’n’ Fill. Pretty much everybody said so. Mum (my baking hero) suggested cutting the top cake in half and filling that as well. And maybe the bottom cake too. Love it! The butter cake itself was a hit – beautifully light and fluffy, delicate flavour.

Come the end of the night, nobody wanted to take any home! I had to laugh. None of us really need any calories, to be honest. Plus, we all lack any kind of self-control when it comes to cake. Mum tried to convince me that my husband could eat the remainder over three days…the look on his face was priceless! So, it came home with me and I divided it up into four pieces – one for hubby and one each for the IT guys at my work. IT guys always deserve cake – they work hard!