Chocolate and Caramel Layer Cake

My little brother came back from doing his exams last night. I thought, being the lovely sister I am, that I would make him a 'well done' cake for all his hard work. 
For the past five or six weeks, basically my entire Easter holiday, he's been begging me to make this cake...sort of (I'll explain later). 
About two years ago my mum and I made a cake really similar to this and he was mad about it. I haven't made one like it since so it seemed like the best time to try it again. Except I didn't have half the ingredients. So I made it up...but he doesn't know that his cake was a bit of a wild experiment. It turned out good anyway.  
This is a triple layered cake with a vanilla, a caramel and a chocolate sponge filled with salted caramel buttercream and topped with chocolate buttercream, a caramel drizzle and white chocolate letters.

I started with the vanilla and chocolate cake layers. Well, that's a lie, I started with the caramel sauce but failed to take any photos of that so I'll talk about that later.
Okay, back to the cake; it started with creaming butter and sugar

I then added the eggs and vanilla

Followed by the milk

and then the flour, baking powder and ground almonds and folding that in until it was fully incorporated

I then divided the batter in two and added cocoa to one half

I spooned the batter into the tins and baked them for 20 minutes

The process was pretty much the same for the caramel cake layer except a little brown sugar was thrown in, along with some caramel for good measure

For the salted caramel buttercream filling I whipped up a standard buttercream with equals parts butter and icing sugar and poured in about a quarter of the caramel sauce I'd made earlier

I then spread some of that buttercream all over the vanilla sponge, topped it with a drizzle of caramel sauce and went to town sprinkling the salt

I topped that with the caramel cake layer and did the whole thing again

I finished off by adding the chocolate cake layer and covering that with chocolate buttercream and topping that with a caramel drizzle and some white chocolate letters

Vanilla and Chocolate Cake Ingredients:

125g butter

125g caster sugar

2 large eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

50ml milk

100g self-raising flour

50g ground almonds

1/2tsp baking powder

2 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder

Method:

Preheat the oven to fan 160 (or 180 normal oven)

Grease and line 2 8inch round cake tins

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy

Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until just incorporated

Add the milk and mix again

Fold in the flour, ground almonds and baking powder

Divide the batter in 2 and add the cocoa to one half

Spoon the batters into the tins and bake for 20 minutes until the cakes spring back when pressed and are shrinking away from the sides of the tin slightly

Leave to cool in the tins for 5 to 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely

Caramel Cake Ingredients:

75g butter

50g soft light brown sugar

25g caster sugar

1 large egg

1/2tsp vanilla extract

25ml milk

2 tbsp caramel

50g self-raising flour

25g ground almonds

1/4tsp baking powder

Method:

Follow the vanilla and chocolate cake method, adding the caramel at the same time as the milk

Caramel Sauce Ingredients:

75g butter

50g soft light brown sugar

50g golden syrup

50g caster sugar 

125ml evaporated milk (because I didn't have any double cream)

Method:

Melt together the sugars, butter and golden syrup in a heavy-based saucepan

Once they are all fully melted, bring to a boil then simmer for 3 minutes

Add the evaporated milk then boil for a further minute

Pour into a jug and leave to cool

Caramel Buttercream Ingredients:

50g butter

50g icing sugar

20ml caramel sauce

Method:

Beat together the butter and icing sugar until fully combined

Add the caramel sauce and beat again

Spread half over the vanilla sponge

Drizzle over some more caramel sauce then sprinkle with Fleur de Sel

Repeat with the caramel cake layer

I used the same chocolate buttercream recipe as the one I put in on the previous recipe, Brown Sugar Cupcakes

It went on top of the chocolate cake layer, was drizzled with more caramel sauce and finished off with white chocolate letters I piped myself

Enough writing about the cake, time to eat a slice...or two