Dulche de leche Cakes

Any one there to raise your hands to say a no to Dulce de leche.  I'm sure if you have taste it before, you wouldn't say no.  Dulce de leche makes wonders with cakes, cookies or desserts.  I wonder why Dulce de leche shouldn't be served as a dessert on it's own straight out of the can.  Whenever I make something out of Dulce de leche, I have to precautionally have an extra can than the recipe suggest, since I finish almost 1/2 of the can when I start preparing :)

This is a very simple cake which I had made so many times before with and without amazing.  Actually it taste amazing without icing.  I have seen this cake in many blogs now, anyway the first time I saw this recipe from Divya's Easy Cooking.  Probably everybody refer her site for this recipe.  Thank you Divya for this yummy yummy recipe.  You'll never worry about your calories when you have this cake.

 In the beginning of last week, I made this cake with lots of icing on top and then Daring Baker's Crunch Bread with the fried patties.  Again I felt like having this cake for the second time in the same week. Second time, to make it less sinful I have cut down two sinners from the recipe, I replaced the plain flour with whole wheat flour and icing sugar with brown sugar.  At last a few sprinkling of walnuts to make justice for the butter which I added.  Below is the image of the wholewheat version, which tasted great too with a mild variation in texture. I better have an eye on my calories after this.

Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 30-40 minutes
Makes 16 squares

Ingredients:
Plain flour- 200 gm
Butter- 200 gm
Eggs- 2
Dulce de leche- 150 g
Icing Sugar- 120 g
Baking powder- 2 tsp
Bicarbonate of soda- 1/4 tsp
Vanilla essence- 1 tsp

For the Icing:
Butter- 100 g
Icing Sugar- 200 g
Dulce de leche- 75 g
Vanilla essence- 1 tsp
Chocolate sprinkles and flaked almonds- to decorate on top ( optional )

Note:
To know how to make dulche de leche please refer here.

Method:
Preheat the oven to 190 degree Celsius. Grease and line a 9 inch square cake tin.  Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda in a large bowl.  In separate bowl beat the butter and icing sugar with a electric beater until it looks light and fluffy.  Now add the Dulce de leche to the butter mixture and beat well.  Now add the eggs and essence and beat it again.  Finally add the flour mixture and mix it well.  Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake it in the preheated oven for 30- 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Take it out from the oven.  Leave it to cool in the tin for about 5 minutes, then remove it out from the tin carefully and let it cool down completely.
Once cooled completely, spread the icing on top and sprinkle with chocolate sprinkles and almonds on top.

To make the icing:
The butter should be at room temperature before you start making the icing.  Beat together the butter, icing sugar, Dulce de leche and essence until it looks smooth and creamy.  Spread it on top of the cake.

For the whole wheat option:
Replace whole wheat flour for plain flour and brown sugar for icing and add some extra nuts along with the batter.  Follow the same amount and method as suggested above.