Caramel Macchiato Cake

4 min read JUN 14, 2022

Have you ever found yourself wishing your favorite sweet coffee was more satiating? We’ve got great news for you - news in the form of a caramel macchiato cake. 

This cake is inspired by the popular drink. The main flavor components are coffee and caramel, so it’s sweet, but not too sweet.

Want to know more? Read on to find out how to make one and how to switch it up and make other caramel macchiato-inspired desserts.

What This Article Covers:



What’s In a Caramel Macchiato Cake?


The cake is a rich brown sugar coffee cake, which highlights all the flavors the drink does. The type of coffee you add to your cake is completely up to you. It depends on how strong you want the cake to be.

caramel macchiato cake recipes

We recommend using a strong filter coffee made with Lifeboost Coffee’s medium roast coffee beans. Some people prefer to make the cake with instant coffee, but we think using filter coffee gives your cake a much more distinct coffee flavor.

The caramel flavor comes from the caramel frosting. We suggest a caramel buttercream because you can control the sweetness of it by adding less icing sugar and tinned caramel. 

Alternatively, you can make or buy dulce de leche, which is made by boiling condensed milk, but this process is a bit more technical. We suggest this option for those with a sweeter tooth.

How to Make a Caramel Macchiato Cake


You can use your favorite cake recipe to make the cake, and add the coffee and caramel components.

Start the process by brewing a cup of coffee as you normally would. Set it aside to cool down, as you don’t want to add hot coffee to your cold cake batter.

Mix the wet ingredients for your batter, then add the cool coffee. We suggest swopping the white sugar out for brown sugar, as this brings the taste of your cake closer to a caramel macchiato.

Add your dry ingredients next, and mix together. If you’re not a fan of moist cakes, you’ll want to add some extra flour. This is because the extra liquid from the cup of coffee makes for a moister cake. We suggest an extra half a cup of flour per standard cup of coffee added.

Pop your cake in the oven. While it’s baking, make your buttercream to your liking, and add tinned caramel. You can add as much as you want, keeping in mind that the point is to add enough for the caramel flavor to come through.

Once your cake is baked and cooled, top it with buttercream. You can also cut your cake in half and fill the middle with the frosting, to intensify the caramel taste in the cake. 

You could even put plain tinned caramel in the middle of your cake, and then top it with the buttercream. This is a great option for those who enjoy super sweet treats.

caramel macchiato cake recipe

Is There Caffeine in a Caramel Macchiato Cake?


There is caffeine in a caramel macchiato cake. This is because it has coffee in the cake itself.

If you’re sensitive to caffeine, the good news is that you can control the caffeine content of the cake. 

You can make weak filter coffee to add to the batter. You could also use instant coffee, which has a lower caffeine content than coffee beans or decaf beans, also available from Lifeboost.

A cup of brewed filter coffee contains between 70 and 120 mg of caffeine. This will be the caffeine content of your cake if you use this option. A cup of instant coffee contains around 60 mg of caffeine.

Variations of the Cake


If you’re not a cake fan, you can make other desserts inspired by the caramel macchiato cake.

The first option is caramel macchiato cupcakes, for those who prefer a smaller treat. 

These can be made with the same recipe as above and baked in cupcake tins instead of a cake tin. You’ll just need to reduce the cooking time to between 15 and 20 minutes.

recipe of caramel macchiato cake

Next, there’s the option of caramel macchiato cookies. These are cookies flavored using instant coffee instead of brewed coffee because cookie batter can’t be adapted to the added liquid that cake batter can. 

The white sugar is also replaced with brown sugar, to closely resemble the taste and color of a caramel macchiato.

Brown sugar has a caramel flavor, and also adds a chewiness to your cake. This makes it feel like more of a decadent treat, just like the drink. This chewiness is because of the molasses content in brown sugar.

Caramel macchiato banana bread is a decadent option. This dessert is made like traditional banana bread with added brewed or instant coffee. It’s topped with a brown sugar glaze, which adds the caramel flavor featured in the drink.

Lastly, there’s caramel macchiato cheesecake. The cheesecake is made using instant coffee to add coffee flavor, and this also gives it a decadent brown color, resembling the drink. It’s topped with caramel drizzle, which can be made to your liking. 

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