Caramel Cake

This was good but came out a bit dry. I agree with making the frosting AFTER you pull the cakes. I put some chopped pecans on top and should have put them in the middle glaze layer as well because I found the cake a little one-note.

I bake cakes regularly, and I was excited to try this one. It was an epic fail. The layers were dry and flavorless, even though I only baked them for 17 minutes. The frosting never came together - it was grainy and sticky and hard when it cooled. Overall, I am not a fan of this recipe.

Great lift and tender crumb even at high altitude and with expired baking powder (doh!) Also, made it in a 9x13 pan because our mountain house doesn’t have round pans. Frosting is a tiny bit grainy and I had to chill the frosting before it would get anywhere near fluffy with beating. But the flavor and texture is so good I will definitely make again. A huge hit with the husband.

The icing didn’t work for us, despite following instructions to the letter, using a candy thermometer, etc. I did some online research and found that other versions do not make the icing in 2 steps (which allows the melted sugar to harden/crystallize - creating all the graininess). Instead they boil together the cream, sugar and butter, and simultaneously melt the sugar in another pan. Once sugar is melted and brown, it is added into the boiling cream mixture. Will try this next time....

I agree the icing solidified too fast. I trued rewarming and adding butter but though it tasted good the exterior icing was grainy and never got fluffy. Maybe heating to 240 for longer would help? Would appreciate tips from a pro.

Frosting only! I confess I made a simpler one layer cake, since I wanted to see if I could handle the frosting. It was less intimidating than I thought. To mix at the end, I dumped from hot pan into stand mixer. Biggest change was adding some powdered sugar and a bit more cream at end to get consistency more like my memory of caramel cakes growing up in Atlanta (can't find these in SoCal, I keep waiting for trend to hit, like Red Velvet). Delicious! that one layer may be enough for us!

This was so good! The icing was not your traditional buttercream or something similar, but I didn't have the spreading problems mentioned below. I think it's important to beat it only briefly so that it's still warm when you spread it.

The caramel frosting also never got fluffy for me - I beat it for 10+ min in my Kitchenaid mixer - it cooled down but was still like spreading melted caramel candies. I put it on the hot cake, it spread to a nice gloss, but because the cakes are warm, it's all quite slippery. Currently in the fridge to try to cool down and hope the layers don't fall off each other. Sure it will be delicious, but not exactly as expected.

Timing was a challenge -- coordinating the prep of the icing with the relatively short baking time of the cake. My icing never became "fluffy" as described in Step 7. I had difficulty spreading the icing -- not creamy -- so I added more cream. So rather than spread the icing on the cake, I poured it over the three layers. It turned out rather well.