DB: Caramel Cake!

I know I'm a little bit late with my Caramel Cake post, but Thanksgiving was just crazy!

This month's challenge was Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting, by Shuna Fish Lydon. The host this month was Dolores from Culinary Curiosity with help from Alex from Blondie and Brownie, Jenny from Foray into Food, and Natalie from Gluten-a-Go-Go.

I was a little nervous about this month's recipe, simply because in the challenge there was a comment about how this cake it truly about baking. I was excited about that because I obviously like to bake, and I like a challenge, hence joining the group...However, I was nervous as this was the first time I took on a recipe that I thought to be challenging.

The recipe was very detailed with many different steps. We had to make a caramel syrup, brown butter, make frosting, and make a cake. The syrup was the part that I found to be the most difficult. I've made hard candy before, in the form of candy canes, but I had never made caramel. The recipe warned to wear long sleeves when pouring the water into the caramel, I ignored the long sleeves, but poured the water in with an oven mitt on my hand. Oh Boy! I was SO glad I made that decision. It really exploded. It was insane. I whisked it a little, and took it off the burner and let it cool. I read the recipe wrong and accidentally added like a cup of the syrup when it only called for 1/3 of a cup. oops. The cake still tasted pretty good, but it was a little overwhelmingly sweet, but that was to be expected when you mess up the recipe!

I made a 9x9 inch square cake, and it cooked for a relatively short time, like 30 minutes. It smelled delicious! While it was cooking I browned the butter and made the frosting. That part was truly delicious. I loved the brown butter, I thought it was delicious and added a great nuttiness to the frosting which balanced my excessively sweet cake nicely.
I loved the cake, and it would have been truly delicious if I had added the correct amount of syrup.