The Cake That Broke My Will
So in a comment on my last post, Lis, asked if I knew of a recipe for caramel cake. Not yellow cake with caramel frosting, but caramel cake. I happened to have one. I told her in the email that I had not made it but I got to sitting and thought, how dumb to give her a recipe I haven’t tried, so I just went ahead and made it today. I have to say that this smelled so good that I had to break down and take a bite(just one) of this cake. It was SUPER yummy. There is definitely more caramel flavor in the frosting than the cake but the cake does have a distinct flavor of caramel and all the extra sugar gives it a nice crispy(yet soft…doens’t make sense I know) top. It’s also a nice moist cake, which I love.
This cake does have quite a few steps. It is important for the cake that you make sure that your caramel for the cake cool or else the minute it hits the batter it will harden up. If this does happen, don’t fret, put your mixer on high speed and blend for 3 minutes. You wont get all the chunks out but it will be kind of like toffee chips in your cake and there is nothing wrong with that. If you cake cracks simply cut it into pieces(not including one with the crack) and frost each one individually. If your cake is beyond crack repair, chop it up into little squares. Place a scoop of vanilla or better yet Haagen Dazs Caramel Cone on top of it. Make a caramel sauce and drizzle over.
Double Caramel Cake
1/3 cup plus 1-1/4 cups granulated sugar, divided use
1/4 cup boiling water
3/4 cup butter or margarine
3 eggs
3 cups sifted cake flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Caramel Frosting (recipe below)
1. Melt the one-third cup sugar in a heavy skillet, stirring constantly until deep-brown syrup is formed - a process called caramelization. Remove from heat and slowly stir in boiling water, being careful that steam does not burn your hand. Set syrup aside to cool.
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease two 9-inch cake pans, place parchment paper in the bottoms, then grease and flour the bottoms and sides.
3. Cream butter in bowl of electric mixer. Add 11/4 cups sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until each is well-incorporated. Stir in 4 tablespoons of the reserved syrup.
4. Sift together the cake flour, baking powder and salt. Combine milk and vanilla. Add flour mixture to the batter alternately with the milk mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Beat until smooth. Divide batter evenly among the two prepared pans and bake 25 minutes, or until wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
5. Remove pans from oven and let stand about 10 minutes, then turn out cakes onto wire rack, peel off paper and cool completely.
6. Frost cooled cake, stacking layers.
Caramel Frosting
3 cups (light) brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons half and half
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. Mix sugar and half and half in a heavy saucepan and cook, stirring over low heat until syrup reaches the soft-ball stage, 235 degrees on a candy thermometer. If lacking a thermometer, check doneness by dropping a tiny bit of syrup into a cup of cold water. When the syrup can be gathered up in fingers and will almost hold its shape, it has reached the soft-ball stage.
2. Remove pan from heat. Stir in butter, then let syrup cool. Add vanilla and beat until frosting reaches spreading consistency. A little cream (or half-and-half) may be added is mixture is too thick.
I don’t know the source of this recipe but it is not mine, so if you do know where it came from, please let me know. Hope this is what you were looking for Lis, if not it is still a great cake.
All text and images on this site have ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Copyright (c) 2006 by Peabody Rudd
October 12th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
Oh, I’m so excited to try this! I love caramel and I’ve been wanting the same kind of recipe your friend is looking for. I’m so glad you tried it and posted it. Looks delicious!
October 12th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
When giving in is this sweet … why resist?!
Beautiful as always!
October 12th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
Peabody,
I have to call you Cake Doctor! Really nothing you can’t fix
now I keep my mouth open wide under my pc screen… waiting that lucious caramel to drop in…
October 13th, 2006 at 1:42 am
Absolutely stunning! The cake looks and sounds delicious, but those shining golden strands of caramel on top make me weep with joy. How on earth do you make these things look so good??
October 13th, 2006 at 3:08 am
Oh yeah baby.. this is EXACTLY what I was looking for.. thank you again, so much! And I am very happy that you ended up making it - because if you hadn’t said something about making sure the caramel syrup was completely cool, I might have rushed and put it in while still warm. Great tip! Thanks
October 13th, 2006 at 8:12 am
I think that cake would break anyone’s will… The sugar on top is a really nice addition
October 13th, 2006 at 8:46 am
Not only does this cake look gorgeous I bet it tastes even better! Yum. I just watched a Good Eats episode where AB created a sugar decoration like the one you used, I must try it out.
October 13th, 2006 at 10:17 am
Your friends and family are truly lucky to have you around to make all these goodies.
October 13th, 2006 at 3:40 pm
oh wow….caramel cake…sounds something just up my alley. Thanks for the recipe!
October 13th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
That’s beautiful and a brilliant recipe for something not so run of the mill - glad you tried it out!
I’m really liking the ‘what to do if . . .’ suggestions.
October 13th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
OH WOW.
j
October 14th, 2006 at 4:07 am
Your will may be broken, but the cake looks delicious.
I’m suitably impressed. I need to blog more about cakes - I need to *learn* more about making cakes.
October 14th, 2006 at 7:36 am
Interesting that the cake tastes caramel-y while still having the same ingredients of a plain cake. I would have thought brown sugar! Very creative
October 14th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Wow…this look sinfully delicious!! All the sugary stuff…one can gets sugar high! *wink*
October 15th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
Peabody,
That looks and sounds delicious! I have never had a caramel cake before - I will have to make that one sometime. You are a cooking genius!
October 16th, 2006 at 5:40 am
That cake would make grown men weep! mmm..DOUBLE Caramel
October 16th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
That is unbelievably gorgeous. You have to submit one of those pics to Does My Blog Look Good In This?
October 16th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
Stunning, I love caramel and that frosting looks sooooo GOOD!
October 17th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
Can I get you arrested for displaying (food) pornography on your blog???!
That is one amazing cake…and I’d probably eat a small slice, too!
November 6th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
Does My Blog Look Stunning or Wot! DMBLGIT Entries 1…
The entrants to Does My Blog Look Good In This. The page will be updated as new photos are entered. The Judges are yet to be selected. Apart from Rob who has been volunteered
Each image has been resized……
December 4th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
The Results: DMBLGIT For November 2006…
For this round of Does My Blog Look Good In This there were an impressive 54 entries with some outstandingly professional looking foodporn images submitted. Do have a look at the entires and see if you agree with the judges……
January 18th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
I know it’s probably a little late to ask this about this post, since it’s an older one, but…
The recipe you post calls for 2-9″ round pans, which you frost and stack, but your photo seems to only show one (tall) layer. Do you use something else to cook your cakes in (many of your cakes are single-layer, which I actually prefer the look of)? Something taller? Could you recommend anything?
Thanks SO much - I LOVE your site and have been visiting regularly for months!
January 9th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
i’m looking to make your caramel cake for 75 guests, at the end of an hors d’oeuvre/cocktail party. what’s your suggestion on how many times to multiply the recipe? does x1 = 16 or 20 or something? have you tried this cake after refrigeration for a few days; how is it?
thanks much. your answers and the recipe- will be very helpful
mindy
March 1st, 2008 at 6:53 am
This sounds really good… I’m going to make it this weekend! I was thinking of using a bundt pan. Do you know if that would that alter the cooking time or temperature? I thought it would be fun to fill the center of the cake with more spun sugar or maybe caramel candies.
March 2nd, 2008 at 9:32 pm
I made it tonight! It came out fine in the bundt pan. I lowered the temp to 325 and baked for about 40 minutes, because I wasn’t sure how fast it would cook. I added toffee pieces to the cake mix because, well, the more candy the better, right?
I had a hard time with the caramel frosting. I measured carefully and used a candy thermometer, and while the frosting came out tasty–my husband is eating the leftovers with a spoon right now!–it’s pretty granular. I’m not sure what I did wrong. I’m wondering how accurate of a temperature measurement I had… even with the narrowest pan I own, the frosting didn’t come up very high on the thermometer, and the thermometer was too tall to clip to the pan, so I was holding it and trying to keep it off the bottom. I’ve never used one before–I actually bought it just to try this recipe–so I guess I’ll figure it out. (Are there small candy thermometers out there? Mine’s about 14 inches tall. It was the only one in the store, but it’s unwieldy.)
Thanks for all the recipes and the inspiration. I’ve been making your cakes right and left for the past few months. I tried your peanut butter cup cake last month… it was great!
April 29th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I made this last weekend for a birthday party and it was a huge hit. I made a few changes — added 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger and 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg to the batter to get more of a caramel spice cake effect. Also, I mixed in about half a cup of the frosting with about a cup of mascarpone cheese and filled the two layers with it (I cannot tell you how good this was). I frosted the top and sides with the regular caramel frosting and made similar sugar decorations with a lone blackberry in the center. I also drizzle some warm blackberry jam across the top (mostly for decoration). The cake was a huge hit - thanks for the recipe!