Toffee Cake Recipe – Quick and Easy (all-in-one method)

This All-in-one, Spiced Toffee Cake recipe is both easy and quick to make. This is a tried and tested recipe that makes a delightful, everyday style cake that fills the need for something sweet, either as a dessert or as an accompaniment to a cup of tea or coffee with your feet up. It’s full of toffee flavours with a little spice and made a little bit yummier with a delicious toffee flavoured icing.

Why you need this Spiced Toffee Cake Recipe in your life

• This cake is full of gentle toffee flavours with a little spice.
• Light, fluffy sponge cake.
• Made using the all-in-one cake method making it quick and easy.
• Just enough buttercream icing to make it special.
• Made in a square baking tin so that it’s easy to portion out for lunch boxes. Cut into whatever-sized slices you need.
• A perfect cake for chillier autumn days, with warming spice flavours.

What is in this Toffee Cake?

This gently cinnamon and ginger spiced Toffee Cake is made using everyday ingredients that you probably already have in your cupboard.

• self-raising flour – sometimes called sponge flour.
• muscovado sugar – selected for its gentle caramel-type flavours.
• Spices – cinnamon and ground ginger. All add gorgeous flavour and as they’re all warm spices a lovely warmth too.
• eggs – to help trap air in the cake making it light, and fluffy.
• unsalted butter – butter gives a great flavour and colour to cakes. Substitute this with margarine that’s suitable for baking if you wish.
• golden syrup – this adds a little more toffee-type flavour to the cake and may be substituted with light corn syrup if you can’t find golden syrup where you live.
• black treacle – gives a real depth to those toffee flavours.
• Icing ingredients – icing sugar or confectioners sugar, butter and a little muscovado which acts as a flavouring in the icing. It can be left out if you prefer.
• baking powder – this helps to give the cake a good rise.

What is the all-in-one Cake making Method?

Making a cake using the all-in-one method, basically means that instead of beating the butter and sugar together, beating in the eggs and then folding in the flour, you put all the ingredients into a bowl, (or if you’re using a stand mixer into that bowl) and mix until everything is well combined. I would still recommend beating the butter first to make it light and smooth but this method is simpler, less fussy and makes beautifully light and fluffy sponge cakes. No compromises on ending up with a beautiful cake.

How to make Toffee cake

What substitutes can I use in this recipe?

There are a few things that you can do to this Toffee Cake recipe to personalise it a little.

• substitute margarine for the butter. This will change the flavour slightly but provided you choose a spread that is suitable for baking, the cake will turn out just as well. Dairy-free margarines that can be used for baking also work.
• spices – the cake recipe uses cinnamon and ginger. If there is a spice here that you do not like then feel free to leave it out and either use a different spice such as mixed spice or all spice or just omit it.
• golden syrup – this is important to the toffee flavour of the cake but if you live somewhere where you cannot get this ingredient then light corn syrup makes a good substitute.
• black treacle – this is also important to the flavour of the cake giving the ‘toffee’ flavours real depth.
• This cake may be made quite quickly using the all-in-one cake baking method but if this isn’t a method that you like or enjoy then it is ok to make this cake the long way. It will be lovely I can assure you. Begin as you would with any sponge-style cake; cream the butter and sugar together, beat in the eggs, add in the flour, golden syrup, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Then just bake as described in the recipe card below.

Icing the cake

This may be a simple, straightforward Toffee Cake recipe but even the most humble of cakes can look amazing with a pretty covering of yummy buttercream icing. The buttercream includes a little muscovado to add that hint of toffee, caramel-like flavours into the icing and it adds a lovely dimension to the cake.

Making the Buttercream Icing

Buttercream is a pretty easy icing to make and you’ve probably made it before. These are just a few hints to help you make it even better.

• Have your butter at room temperature so that it is soft but not so soft that you can push your finger through it.
• Beat it well before adding any icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar). This helps to increase the volume of the butter and makes it lovely and smooth. It also gets lighter in colour, look at the difference between this and the colour of the butter you started with. It can be surprising.
• Always sieve your icing sugar at least once to get rid of any little clumps. They’re very difficult to get rid of once it’s mixed into the butter so remove them at the beginning.
• Add the icing sugar in two stages. For the first stage add half of the amount and beat it in thoroughly, then add in the remaining sugar and beat it until it is smooth and creamy. It is probably fairly thick at this point.
• Add in the milk, vanilla extract and ground cinnamon, beat it well. You want the buttercream to be thick enough that it will hold its shape but not so thick that its difficult to use.

Using the Buttercream

So, making the buttercream for the Toffee Cake is simple but precisely how are you going to ice it? You have a few options.

1. You can gently spread the buttercream over the top of the cake and leave it at that.
2. There’s the option of spreading buttercream over the cake and then dragging a fork over the top, first in one direction and then in the other. It creates a pretty basketweave pattern. Easy and effective.
3. Use a palette knife to create a pattern by dragging the end of the knife across the top, simple but pretty.
4. You can also pipe this buttercream using a pretty star nozzle and pipe icing up and down the cake which makes another gorgeous pattern on the top.
   1. This pattern using an icing bag just begs for a little more…. how about drizzling a little caramel sauce over the top. Looks amazing as it gets captured by the nooks and crannies created by the buttercream.

Tips for Success

A few suggestions for making this Toffee Cake Recipe successful.

• Have your ingredients at room temperature. They’ll be easier to work with and cold eggs can be a reason why a sponge cake sinks.
• Sieve your flour. It’s always a good idea to sieve your flour to remove any clumps and to aerate it before you mix or fold it into the cake mixture.
• Measure all the ingredients accurately – a digital scale will help with this.
• Use an oven thermometer as not all domestic ovens are accurate. I was surprised how different my own oven was and it makes a massive difference.
• Resist opening the oven door whilst the cake is cooking as this can cause it to sink in the middle. Only take it out at the end of the cooking time to test that it is done.
• Always test that your cake has cooked through by inserting a skewer and if there are a few moist crumbs attached to it, it is done. Other ways include pressing the centre gently, if it springs back the cake is cooked through. Also, if the cake has come to the end of the cooking time and has come away from the sides of the tin, this is a good indication that the cake has baked through.

Storing the Toffee Cake

Store for up to 4 days in a suitable air-tight container.

Freezing the spiced Toffee Cake

This cake may be frozen for up to 2 months if you wish to bake it ahead. If you do intend to freeze the cake leave the buttercream icing until later. Freeze the cake in a suitable container until needed.

When you’re ready to use the cake, allow it to thaw on the countertop. Whilst, it thaws, make the buttercream icing and once it is thoroughly thawed, ice the cake. Use decorative swirls through the icing made with a palette knife or a fork or go to town with an icing bag.

If you have any questions about this recipe or any others on this blog then please get in touch

If you like this recipe then you may like these …..

• Castella Cake
• Banana and Date Loaf Cake
• Rock Cakes
• Chocolate Lava Cake
• Blueberry Crumble
• Easy Vegan Blueberry muffins
• Blueberry Orange Muffins
• Double Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Honey Cake
• Shortbread
• Easy Zucchini Bread (Courgette Cake)

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