This Decadent Caramel Chocolate Cake layers a moist, coffee-kissed chocolate sponge with buttery caramel sauce and a rich chocolate frosting for a bakery-style celebration cake. The combination of hot coffee in the batter, homemade caramel, and a fluffy chocolate buttercream gives you deep flavor, soft crumb, and a glossy caramel drip that feels truly indulgent.
Why this cake is so rich
The chocolate cake uses an oil-based batter with cocoa, hot coffee (or water), and both baking powder and baking soda, very similar to many “best ever” chocolate cakes designed to be extra moist and flavorful. Hot coffee is a common trick in modern chocolate cake recipes because it blooms the cocoa and enhances chocolate flavor, even if you don’t want the cake to taste like coffee. The caramel is a classic wet-free caramel made by melting sugar, then enriching it with butter and cream to form a smooth, pourable sauce comparable to the salted caramel used in layered chocolate–caramel cakes and drip cakes.
The chocolate frosting follows the standard American buttercream style: creamed butter, powdered sugar, cocoa, cream, and vanilla beaten until light and spreadable. Putting these together—chocolate cake, homemade caramel, chocolate frosting, and a caramel drip—lands the cake in the same indulgent family as salted caramel chocolate cakes and “death by chocolate caramel” showpieces.