Get the App

Recipes

Find a Recipe Blue Ribbon Recipes Pinch It!™ Feed Browse All Recipes

Editorial

Food Bites & Articles Videos What is a Blue Ribbon? Meet the Test Kitchen

Community

Member Recipes Groups Sweepstakes Contests Shopping

traditional southern caramel cake

(1 rating)
NakedMaggie avatar
Recipe by
Maggie May Schill
@NakedMaggie
Jacksonville, FL

Having grown up in New England, I've never had a caramel cake before...like ever! So when I decided to try a caramel cake out I decided it should be the most traditional Southern variety as I can get. That included dense sweet sponge and thick gooey brown butter frosting. (A type of frosting I've previously not tried.) I'm still not sure if I love caramel cake or not, but boy is it sweet!

(1 rating)
yield 16 serving(s)
prep time 45 Min
cook time 40 Min
method Bake

Ingredients For traditional southern caramel cake

  • FOR CARAMEL CAKE
  • 3 c
    cake flour
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp
    baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp
    salt
  • 1 c
    sugar
  • 1/4 c
    caramel syrup
  • 1/2 c
    unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1 c
    whole milk
  • 3 lg
    eggs, room temperature
  • 2 Tbsp
    pure vanilla extract
  • FOR BROWN BUTTER FROSTING
  • 1 c
    unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 4 c
    confectioner's sugar
  • 1/2 c
    heavy cream, cold
  • 1 Tbsp
    pure vanilla extract
  • 1/8 tsp
    salt

How To Make traditional southern caramel cake

  • 1
    Preheat oven to 375'F Spray two 9-inch round cake pans with cooking spray, line each with a parchment paper round. Spray again over parchment rounds. Set pans aside.
  • 2
    Beat butter in a large mixing bowl. Gradually add sugar to butter mixture and continue to beat until fluffy.
  • 3
    Beat syrup into the butter mixture until completely incorporated. Add one egg at a time into batter, completely incorporating each before adding the next.
  • 4
    In another large mixing bowl, sift flour, salt, and baking powder together.
  • 5
    In a measuring cup pour out milk. Mix vanilla extract into the milk.
  • 6
    Gradually add flour mixture into butter mixture, alternating between flour and milk mixture; beginning and ending with flour mixture until both the flour and milk mixtures are complete incorporated into batter.
  • 7
    Divide batter evenly between pans and bake for about 30 minutes, or until a tooth pick comes our barely clean.
  • 8
    Cool cake for 10 minutes in pan, then turn out onto wire wrack to finish cooling.
  • 9
    For Frosting: 1- in a sauce pan over medium heat, melt butter until nutty brown. Be careful not to scorch. Immediately pour butter into a large glass mixing bowl. Let butter cool for 15-20 minutes. 2- With an electric mixer, mix in vanilla and salt. 3- Gradually add confectioner's sugar until completely incorporated. You will have a clumpy mess at this point. 4- With your mixer on low gradually at cream. Add more cream as needed to get desirable creamy frosting texture, but don't over do it, or you'll have a mess.
  • 10
    Assembly: Level off any doming on the cooled caramel cakes. Place the first cake on a cake platter and frost the top of it. Stack the second on the first and frost entire cake as desired. I chose to garnish with extra caramel syrup.
  • Last Step: Don't forget to share! Make all your friends drool by posting a picture of your finished recipe on your favorite social network. And don't forget to tag Just A Pinch and include #justapinchrecipes so we can see it too!
ADVERTISEMENT