The Caramel Cake, Revisited.

RECIPE

STEP BY STEP Instruction

~ and more to come ~

Comments

[Mary]

Talk about synchronicity ... I was taking a bite of caramel as I saw this post come up!

What a lovely cake. I really enjoy it and can see so many delicious possibilities in it.

Thank you for bringing this treat into my kitchen.

[Aran]

it looks great! all have to say is that mine came out beautiful and i didn't encounter any problems with it. i loved it!

[Alexis]

Is it wrong that I want to eat that for breakfast?

Definitely not! ~ Shuna

[Aaron]

Did you change it at all? It looks shorter/denser.
Love the swirl!

Aaron.

Yes, every cake is a snowflake. and snow falling in London has a completely different makeup. To start with, the butter here is ridiculously amazing = very high in butterfat. Then there's the fact that the baking pans are made of steel. Oh, and don't forget the flour is harder, and the Icing Sugar is not the equivalent of Confectioner's sugar. I could go on, but I'll stop there.

Sometimes you change the cake. Sometimes the Cake Changes You. ~ Shuna

[Kalyn]

Shuna, this is really beautiful. (I'm definitely not patient enough to create a cake like this, but certainly appreciate the skill it must take to get it come come out so perfect looking!)

[Dad & Ellen]

Could you please send us two of these cakes? We are very hungry and they look sooooooo delicious!! We won't eat anything until they arrive!!

[Anali]

Such a beautiful cake! I like all the swirls. The recipe has me a bit intimidated though, so I think I'll just admire it from afar for now. ; )

[Cakespy]

It is just so gorgeous!

[Matt]

Shuna,
this is THE best cheesecake that I have ever had - and I don't even like cheesecake!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving across the pond.

[Flavia]

hi Shuna, I baked it yesterday and it is great. I have to admit I felt a little hesitant sometimes but I followed your instructions precisely and it turned out great! For me the caramel was the trickiest, since the first time I cooked it to much (but I put a little more water & it worked). I also had to change the topping since here in Brasil we are not much the buttercream type. Our butter is not very goog and it is too warm anyway.. I did a meringue and drizzeled the caramel on it. Hope you don't mind ! :) I am going to post it on mu blog soon ! Thanks for the inspiration!

[Marce]

I did the recipe for the Daring Bakers a couple of weeks ago and loved it, especially that frosting! So I want to thank you for providing the recipe and for being so patient in answering all the questions that came up, this recipe is a keeper.

[Regine]

I have not yet made this cake but plan on doing it soon. However, I saw some of the comments about the cake sometimes being dense, and based on that and my experience as a baker, I would recommend using buttermilk instead of milk. So instead of 1 cup milk, use 1 cup buttermilk. And add 1/2 tsp baking soda. I find that buttermilk makes a cake more moist.

hello Regine,

While I would agree with you for some cakes, about the buttermilk, I would warn you against doing it for this one. Although I would be intrigued to see a side-by-side comparison.

The caramel in this recipes does a few things to the batter. It adds color, flavour, sweetness and, (this being the clincher) acid. If you also add the acid of buttermilk I fear you will have a denser cake. The dense-ness that people are talking of in the Caramel Cake come from moistness already.

The surest way to get this cake as light as you can is to cream the hell out of the butter and sugar. At work we are using a 20 Quart Hobart and still creaming, scraping down, creaming, scraping down for a good 20 minutes. If everything is the right temperature and you don't overcrowd your oven, this cake will get as light (in texture) as it can, given its ingredient list. Not all cakes are meant to be light.

If you do make these changes, please do come back and tell us of your findings. Thanks! ~ Shuna

[Leniza]

I would love to make this cake, but I don't have a stand mixer. Will the recipe work with an electric hand mixer?

Hello Leniza, This is an excellent question. I have never made it with anything else but a high powered mixer. Here's what I would make sure of before you start:

All your ingredients need to be on the warmish side of room temp. The bowl you are doing your mixing in should not be on a counter that will take it's warmth out. If you're on a wood table, fine, but if it's marble or glass or some such material like this-- put a dishtowel under your bowl.

Mix your flour in at the lowest possible setting, and increase the speed a bit for the milk. And can you do us a favor if you remember? Come back and tell us how it went. Your experiment might inform a lot of people! ~ Shuna

[Paula Maack]

Bada Bing!!!
If I were a boy, it'd be schawiiinnnggggg!!!!!!!!

I'm so glad this was revisited and then revisited again and again all over the blogosphere. It is rocking my world!!

And, thank you ever so for the fab tip on the creaming, and creaming... for a good 20 minutes. I'm game to give it a try.

But, just how crowded is an over crowded oven, anyway?

Ta from moi!

XOXOXOX

[maris]

I love the design on the cake! So chic but not too fancy that you wouldn't want to eat it! :)

[Leniza]

So I finally made this cake using my electric hand mixture and it came out wonderfully. The process was exhausting...I took your instructions very seriously so I spent a lot of time mixing, making sure I was getting lots of air in the butter and not overwhelming the batter. My arm was tired and I hated the cake before I even put it in the oven!

The cake actually gets better if you let it sit for a while (overnight in my case). I wasn't crazy about it after my first piece--it was ok, but not worth the effort, and I didn't care for the frosting at all (to be fair, I usually prefer my cakes plain, anyway), I thought the brown butter taste was overwhelming even though my sister and cousin loved it immediately. When I tasted the cake the next day though it was fantastic, so moist and flavorful. I will definitely be making this again for Christmas. The only thing I'd do differently is the frosting. It came out too thick and was hard to spread, so I'd add more liquid, and maybe use less butter even though the taste did mellow the next day.

Thank you so much for this recipe and all the advice. All that work was totally worth it.

[Christina]

Hi Shuna, thank you for sharing this recipe. I made this yesterday, in cupcake form. It was tiring though, as I was using a electric hand-held mixer and had to mix for a while to ensure that all the ingredients were mixed thoroughly and to get more air in. But it was all worth the effort. The cupcakes turned out a little dense but still yummy-licious. They tasted much better when left to rest overnight after baking. Perhaps next time, I will try mixing it a bit longer to see if the cake will be lighter. Thanks again, Shuna :)