Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting

This cake is amazing. And I can see making the caramel syrup again to drizzle over various items, and the frosting (oh yes, that frosting!) for various applications on other cake. It would be sick on top of chocolate cupcakes. I'm not sure how much sea salt I added to the frosting, but the final taste was a heavenly, salted caramel finger-lickin' good. Once you get past the challenge of making what is known as 'culinary napalm', the rest of the recipe is straighforward. I had a bowl of snow scooped from the deck sitting nearby at the ready, just in case, and I was wearing long sleeves and two oven mitts to safeguard against molten sugar burns.

I did have to bake it an additional 15-20 minutes longer than the recipe specified. Not a suprise with my oven, I usually have to give most things a little more time.

I just love the color the syrup gives to the cake and frosting. I think I added a bit more than what the recipe called for, but that's the nice thing about frosting: you can adjust until it looks and feels right. There was plenty to cover the single layer cake (another nice thing: no big multi-layer thing with leftovers to tempt me for days and days), plus a little left over.

For the cake, I used a greased and parchment-lined 9-inch springform pan, which was perfect. The cake itself was dense and moist, and dubbed delicious by Sharon and Rodney who are visiting for the weekend.




Recipe by Shuna Fish Lydon