Homemade Butterscotch and Daim Layer Cake with Butterscotch Frosting

This homemade butterscotch and Daim layer cake with butterscotch frosting was originally published in November 2018 on The Culinary Jumble. The recipe has been updated slightly.

Cake. What would life be like without cake? Hopefully I’ll never have to find out because I tell you, that wouldn’t end well.

Seriously though, birthday season has rolled around again in our house and regular readers will know that any birthday is a flimsy excuse for a fancy cake here.

Over the years I’ve made many celebration cakes, including the monstrously indulgent chocolate overload cake.

This time around, the now 14 year old was persuaded that he wanted nothing more than a Daim cake. Okay, he was in total agreement and there was no arming twisting (hello? Daim bars?) but it was definitely my suggestion.

Daim bars are no stranger to the blog, either. The teeth-breaking chocolate covered caramel candies absolutely make the cake. However, although Daim is the lead in this show, the homemade butterscotch gets a supporting role worthy of an Oscar.

I came up with the idea of using butterscotch because I thought it would go so well with Daim and I am pleased to say, I wasn’t wrong. By the way, have you ever wondered what the difference between butterscotch and caramel was? Yep, me, too.

For this cake, and the first time ever, I decided to make a four layer cake. There’s a reason why I’ve never tried it before. Cake decorator extraordinaire, I am not. I am pretty sure The Cake Girls won’t loose much sleep over it, put it that way.

It isn’t going to win any beauty competitions. I made an absolutely bodge of cutting the cakes in half (knew I would. Just knew it) and it didn’t slice very cleanly, but you know what? Who cares. This blog is all about making it real. Real food for real people. And I know you guys don’t care about silly little things like perfection.

Bottom line: it tasted delicious. That’s what counts.

The cake was good right off the bat but the flavour deepened the longer it sat there.

It’s unusual for cakes to last long in my house but we were out about, and didn’t get the chance to eat it all. Third day in, the cake tasted better than it did when we ate our first mouthful.

The butterscotch flavour in this Daim layer cake is hiding quietly in the background rather than coming out all guns blazing. The cake is not super-sickly sweet, either. With a dense, moist sponge and lashings of rich, sweet buttercream frosting, it tasted ah-mazing.

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Homemade Butterscotch and Daim Layer Cake with Butterscotch Frosting

Course Cake

Ingredients

Butterscotch:

• 60g butter
• 100g brown sugar
• 125ml cream

Daim:

• 168g Daim (3 x 56g double bars)

Cake:

• 175g butter
• 100g brown sugar
• 50g Daim "powder" (see instructions)
• 3 eggs
• 4 tablespoons homemade butterscotch
• 1 tablespoon dark syrup (treacle or molasses)
• 150ml milk
• 100ml Greek yoghurt
• 200g flour - see notes
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar (or extract)

Frosting:

• 150g butter (softened)
• 200g cream cheese
• remaining butterscotch
• icing sugar (as much as is needed to make a spreadable frosting)

Instructions

Butterscotch:

• Heat the butter in a heavy-bottomed pan until just melted. Add the other two ingredients. Stir to combine. Bring to a gentle boil and cook until the mixture thickens and the sugar is dissolved (around 6-8 minutes). Stir occasionally to prevent sticking/burning.

Daim:

• Take 2 x 56g bars of Daim and blitz them in a food processor. Remove half when they are crushed but still chunky and set to one side. Continue to blitz the remaining Daim until they resemble a powder. Again, set to one side (but separate from the larger bits).

Cake:

• Pre-heat the oven to 175ºC (350ºF) and prepare two 6 inch (18cm) pans.
• Cream the butter, sugar and Daim "powder" together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and then the butterscotch and dark syrup. Finally, mix in the milk and Greek yoghurt.
• In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar and baking soda and then stir into the wet ingredients. Pour into the prepared pans and bake for around 30-35 minutes. The cakes are ready when an inserted skewer comes out clean.
• Let the cakes cool a little before turning out onto a wire rack. Allow the cakes to cool completely.

Frosting:

• Beat the butter and cream cheese together until nice and light. Add the remaining butterscotch. Finally, add as much icing sugar as needed to make a thick but spreadable frosting.

Assembly:

• Carefully cut both cakes in half. Spread an even amount of frosting over the top of every layer and place the cakes on top of each other. If you like, give the cake a bit of a "naked" look (as I have) but it isn't necessary.
• To decorate the cake, break up the remaining 56g of Daim aiming for a jagged edge and stick them into the frosting. Sprinkle with the retained crushed Daim. I also added a few gold sprinkles I had in the cupboard, but these are optional. Slice and enjoy!

Notes

This recipe first appeared on The Culinary Jumble (my previous blog) in 2018, and the cake was made using regular flour.  For the sake of transparency, I have not recreated this particular cake with spelt flour. However, I have straight swapped spelt flour for regular flour in everything I've made for the past two years, without any noticeable differences. Therefore, I am confident that this would also be the case for this particular recipe.