Caramel and Cake

What a blast today has been! After church, I came back to the woman's house who I am staying with, and she was watching a movie. In that movie, there was a baking scene - women gathered in the kitchen making a birthday cake. We both saw the screen and said "mmmm...that looks good!" Then, we hatched a plan. With a couple ideas in my brain, and mix-and-match baking ingredients in the kitchen, we decided to bake a cake! Well, cupcakes at first, until we realized we had no cupcake pans/papers. So our cupcake idea baked into a cake idea (:

Here's the recipe I chose to follow. I got the idea/recipe off a friend's blog, and it sounded really good, so I gave it a try! She was right - it is suuuuuuuuuuuuuper.

I think the coolest part about this whole recipe is that you end up kind of making your own caramel - by way of granulated sugar and cream (or something close. You'll see;). It's so much fun to make everything from scratch - including the ingredients! It's definitely a recipe everyone should have in their kitchen!

Salted Caramel Cake

• 1 stick butter
• 3-4 cups powdered sugar (or as needed. I only ended up using 1 1/2 cups:)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup heavy cream (or 2% milk, if that's all you have:)
• sea salt
  

For the "Caramel":

• In a heavy bottomed saucepan, cook the granulated sugar until it begins to melt
• After it is melted and browned, pour in the cream (or milk:) in, in a steady stream
• Stir until completely smooth and set aside to cool (my friend suggested adding 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract to the caramel. I did it and I think it just brought out the flavor some more)

For the Rest of the Frosting:

• In a mixer, cream the butter until fluffy and smooth
• Add the powdered sugar (again, you may not need all 3-4 cups. I only used 1 1/2 cups) in 1/2 cup at a time, until it is the consistency you want
• Add a pinch of sea salt
• Add the "caramel" in dollops
• Gently swirl - I used a mixer on low speed and it seemed to work just as well
• Top the cake (or cupcakes, cookies, whatever you're baking;)
• Once topped, add a bit of sea salt onto the top of the frosted cupcakes to balance out the frosting a little bit more.
  
  I LOVE finding and trying new and slightly "exotic" recipes like this one (have you tried the lime & black pepper sugar cookies recipe yet?;). While on my hunt to find more unique frosting recipes, I came across two more really yummy-sounding ones that I cannot wait to try!
  
  Enjoying the Eats,

Em