Milk Chocolate Fleur de Sel Caramel Cake

Bacon and Maple syrup go well together so it made sense to me that salted caramels would taste pretty good and Cocoa Atalier in Drury Street proved that for me.  I was browsing the web looking for a recipe for making Fleur de Sel Caramels that didn't involve Karo (which is almost impossible to source in Dublin unless you order it online and have it shipped in), when I found this recipe.   You can use fleur de Sel or Maldon Sea Salt Flakes in this recipe.  The cake rose a bit funny but I trimmed it down and used the trimming and leftover frosting to make cake pops.  The cake itself is nothing shy of decadent with large quantities of butter and double cream and it lends itself well to celebrations but it also has quite an adult taste and it's very rich.  Also it takes a while to make so start with the frosting get that made before you even attempt the cake.

Frosting:
275g Sugar
500ml Double Cream
.5 tsp Fleur de Sel
450g Milk Chocolate
250g Dark Chocolate
250g Unsalted Butter

Cake:

200g Flour
75g Cocoa
1.5tsp baking soda
.5tsp Fleur de Sel
200g Butter
250g soft brown Sugar
100g Sugar
4 Eggs
75g Dark Chocolate Melted and Cooled
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
350ml Buttermilk

Method:

1. Frosting:  Over a medium-low heat, in a heavy bottomed saucepan mix stir sugar and water together until the sugar dissolves then remove your wooden spoon from the pot and leave on the heat to caramelise.  As soon as it does remove from the heat and add the double cream, add salt.  Pour mix over broken chocolate and stir until smooth.  Chill in the fridge for an hour.  Remove from the fridge and using an electric whisk beat in the butter.  Refridgerate for a further hour.
2. Preheat the oven to 170C grease and line two sandwich tins
3. Sieve flour baking soda cocoa and fleur de sel together. 
4. Cream Butter and Sugar together. Add Eggs one at time mixing thoroughly between each egg.  Add Vanilla & Melted chocolate and mix thoroughly.   
5. Add a third of the flour mix, half the buttermilk, another third of the flour mix, another half of the buttermilk and the final third of the flour mix, stirring well with each addition.  Divide the mixture between the two sandwich tins and bake for 25 mins.  Leave to cool for 10mins in the tin before turning out onto a cooling rack.
6. Sandwich together using frosting and smooth the remainder of the frosting over the top and sides of the cake.  Sprinkle with fleur de sel so people get a hint of what's inside.