Caramel Cake: Revisited 1 Year Later

Friday, on the way home, I had a baking craving. I love baking cravings. I had no idea what I was going to bake but I was going to bake something. Somehow caramel cake popped up into my head. I thought of my first and last caramel cake attempt. It was a good cake but thinking back on it it was a little cakey. I should have split those 3 layers into 6 and upped the caramel to cake ratio.

Here is the sappy, sticky, sweet part:

Last year when I made the cake it was a random baking event and ended up taking it to a small engagement party for two friends who had just recently gotten engaged. I'm thinking about all of this driving home and I remembered a conversation I had that night with newly engaged Heather about how I had a date the next night with an art director in Charlotte. That's what I called him I think. Our first date was January 10th. So, I'm making caramel cake the same weekend as I did last year. The first weekend in January. The weekend of my first date with Jon. That is why I had caramel cake on the brain (or heart).

Here is the recipe I had saved and forgotten about. It was okay. Didn't quite live up to my expectations. The cake was ever so slightly dry and the caramel was good but maybe because I forgot to add the vanilla at the end it wasn't as good as it could have been. Oh, and the presentation...I had to tell Jon it was supposed to look like that! Jon and I took it to poker night and when he told the sad story of how I didn't make him a birthday cake we turned this into a 5 month late celebration. I told him to look sad in the photo.

Caramel Cake

For the new year I've decided that I need to try out a new recipe each week. At least one. Last week I actually tried out 2 new recipes but being busy with so many other things (and because I didn't put that much into the recipes themselves) I never got around to blogging about them. I'll do better though.

So despite getting 5 new cookbooks for Christmas with hundreds of baking recipes, I went to my old Paula Deen Just Desserts for this one. I've always wanted to make it and think about making it all the time. I'm pretty sure that that makes me weird but that's okay. Surely other people walk around and constantly think about things to bake. I know they do.

Week One- Caramel Cake (technically "Bobby's Caramel Cake")

I can't remember ever having Caramel Cake before but that being said, this cake is pretty delicious. The filling was so good (I made a slight mistake of adding too much milk to mine so it wasn't as thick as it should be, but still very tasty) and there is more than enough for the cake. I just kept pouring it on so it ran all over the place. I put my cake in the fridge overnight and made the frosting the next day. The only problem with this was the frosting was warm and the cake was cold so when I was frosting it so it sort of hardened immediately and was difficult to make pretty. But prettiness aside, I took it to Heather and Ashley's joint engagement celebration and it got good reviews from everyone!

Ingredients:

For the cake:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

4 eggs

3 cups sifted self-rising flour

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the filling:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

2 cups packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the frosting:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

1/3 cup heavy cream, or more if needed

1 (16 ounce) box confectioners' sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup chopped nuts, optional

Directions:

For the cake:

Preheat the oven to 35o degrees. Grease and flour 3 (nine inch) round cake pans.

Using an electric mixer, cream butter until fluffy. Add sugar and continue to cream well for 6 to 8 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour and milk, adding alternately to creamed mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Add vanilla and continue to beat until just mixed. Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Level batter in each pan by holding pan 3 or 4-inches above counter and dropping it flat onto the counter. Do this several times to release the air bubbles and assure you more of a level cake. Bake 25 minutes or until golden brown.

For the filling:

While cake is baking, in a saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar, and milk. Cook and stir over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Remove cake layers from oven and allow cake to remain in pans as you prepare to stack and fill. Remove first layer and invert onto cake plate. Pierce cake layer with a toothpick over entire surface. Spread 1/3 of filling mixture on cake layer. Top with second layer, repeat process. Top with last layer and repeat process again.

For the frosting:

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat and stir in brown sugar and cream. Bring to a boil, and transfer to a mixing bowl. Add confectioners' sugar and vanilla. Beat with a handheld electric mixer until it reaches a spreading consistency. At this time it may be necessary to add a tablespoon of heavy cream, or more, if frosting gets too thick. Just be sure to add cream is small amounts because you can always "add to", but you can't take away. Frost cake and sprinkle top with chopped nuts, if desired.