This Constellation Milky Way Cake has a chocolate malt cake and frosting with a drippy caramel in the middle!
There’s something about those clear nights. No moon in sight, the stars and the planets shimmer against an indigo sky. How do you put a flavor to such scenery?
For the Constellation Milky Way Cake, I went with the flavors of the Milky Way candy bar. A malted chocolate softly infuses the cake and frosting. The simple use of caramel (either homemade or jarred) compliments the cake with a toasty caramelized finish.
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Constellation Milky Way Cake
Recipe Type: dessert
Serves: 1 3-layer 8-inch
Ingredients
- For the Malt Chocolate Cake:
- 3 cups cake flour
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon fine salt
- ½ cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
- 2/3 cup malt chocolate Ovaltine
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- For the Malt Chocolate Frosting:
- 1 lb unsalted butter, cubed and room temperature
- 8 ounces cream cheese, cubed and room temperature
- 8 to 10 cups powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon fine salt
- 1 ½ tablespoons vanilla
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
- ¼ cup malt chocolate Ovaltine
- Purple and blue food gel
- For Assembling the Constellation Milky Way Cake:
- 1 cup salted caramel sauce
- Silver sprinkles
Instructions
To make the Malt Chocolate Cake:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease three 8-inch cake pans with baking spray, set aside.
- Sift cake flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 45 seconds. Scrape bowl and paddle, add oil and sugar, and beat together until very light and thick, about 5 to 7 minutes on medium speed. Lower speed to medium-low and add eggs one at a time. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl.
- In a spouted cup, whisk buttermilk, Ovaltine, and vanilla.
- With mixer speed down to low, add dry mixture in three additions alternately with wet mixture in two additions, beginning and ending with dry mixture. Give batter a final mix by hand to ensure nothing is stuck to the bowl or paddle.
- Divide batter between prepared pans and bake for 24 to 28 minutes, rotating halfway. A toothpick inserted should come out mostly clean with a few moist, not wet, crumbs. Let cakes cool in pans for 5 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely. For an even moister cake, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
To make the Malt Chocolate Frosting:
- In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment beat butter and cream cheese on medium-high speed until whipped, light and fluffy, about 3 minutes scraping the bowl and paddle periodically. Gradually add powdered sugar, salt, and vanilla on a low speed then raise speed to blend until smooth and lump free. Whisk heavy cream with Ovaltine and add at the end, beating to incorporate. Divide frosting and tint one batch purple and one batch blue.
To assemble the Constellation Milky Way Cake:
- Use a serrated knife to level off cake tops. Dollop a bit of frosting onto the cake board and secure the first cake layer. Apply an even layer of frosting, add 1/3 of the caramel sauce, and secure the next cake layer. Repeat process, topping with third and final layer. The frosting will be soft, so do a gentle crumb coat, swirling the purple and blue together refrigerating for 30 minutes to an hour. Do a final thicker coating. Use remaining frosting to pipe a boarder on top. Drizzle with remaining caramel sauce and decorate in silver sprinkles.