Burnt Sugar Cake with Caramel Frosting

plentysweetlife

Apr 28

Today's recipe for Burnt Sugar Cake with Caramel Frosting is one that I've wanted to make for years, but it sounded a bit intimidating. Once I got going on it, it wasn't hard to do - there are just a lot of steps. I had some issues with the cake, but as we'll discuss later, it was my fault. I can totally see Grandma and her sisters making a cake like this - and I'm sure it came from one of them. They were a bit adventurous when it came to their sweets - and those girls liked their sweets! Hence the name of this blog - Plenty Sweet Life! Maybe one of them made this cake as a dessert for a family Sunday dinner. This photo of Grandma and Grandpa looks like it was taken about this time of year. There aren't any leaves on the trees and the cars in the background look a little muddy. Maybe they were on their way to dinner after church. They sure are dressed up and looking "dandy"!

I love grandma's fur-looking coat (my daughters would love it if that was still around), and Grandpa has on a dapper-looking hat! Ahh. Sure do miss them. Ok - on with the cake.

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Burnt Sugar Cake with Caramel Frosting

To make the burnt sugar syrup:

Burn 1/2 cup dampened sugar (I added 1 T. water to the sugar) in a frying pan until it looks like tar.

Add:

1 cup boiling water (do this carefully because it will sputter)

Boil to a syrup (this took about 3-5 minutes).

The recipe says this is enough for several cakes, but I think it would be enough for 2 cakes or 1 cake and frosting (if you use it in my suggestion of Fluffy White Frosting - more about this later).

To make the cake:

Cream:

1/2 cup butter

Cream again with:

1 1/2 cup sugar

Add:

2 egg yolks (save the whites for later)

1 cup milk or water (I used milk)

2 cups sifted flour

Beat 5 minutes.

Add:

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 teaspoons burnt sugar syrup (more if you like - but that would leave you less for making another cake)

Add:

1/2 cup flour into which has been added - 2 teaspoons baking powder

Fold in:

2 egg whites, beaten

Of course, there is no time or temp given as to how to bake the cake - I baked at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick came out clean.

To make the frosting (while this frosting was delicious on this cake, I'd use the Fluffy White Frosting next time and instead of the water in that recipe, use the burnt sugar syrup - the caramel flavor overpowered the burnt sugar syrup and this frosting wasn't great for this cake):

Mix together:

2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup cream or canned milk (don't know if she meant evaporated milk, but I only had 2% milk and it worked fine)

Boil 5 minutes - very briskly.

Add:

1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat until creamy (here is where things start to go off the rails - the frosting got creamy and turned into fudge, so I had to add about 1/4 cup more milk - the frosting was very heavy and thick on this cake and that's why I'd use the other kind of frosting next time).

It said to use dampened sugar, so I put in 1 T. of water. Just keep stirring all through this process. You will start to see beads of caramelized sugar along the sides first.

Next, the sugar will clump up and start to brown.

It looks like soup, but the sugar will melt and eventually smooth out.

Here is the smoothed caramel - won't be long now.

Here we go - looks like tar to me! Boil it 3-5 minutes more.

Once the syrup is done, cool it completely before using it in the cake or anything else.

When putting in the eggs - don't forget to save the whites to beat later.

It makes a lovely, smooth batter.

In go the last bit of flour mixed with the baking powder, the vanilla, and the burnt sugar syrup.

Fold in the last ingredients.

At last - the egg whites are folded in.

I put a disc of parchment paper in the bottom of the 9" pans PLUS greased them and floured them so the cake will come out perfectly.

It worked! The cake DID come out perfectly! Cool the cakes completely before frosting.

Here's where I had a problem - the first layer of cake and frosting went on beautifully. When I put the second layer on, I put it on upside down and stupidly tried to take it off and flip it over.

It didn't work. The second layer of cake stuck like glue to the bottom layer and broke apart in my hands. Oh well - let's go with it - leave it on and pour on the rest of the frosting. After cutting a slice of cake, I realized that it was amazingly delicious and beautiful, as long as my husband couldn't see what the rest of the cake looked like. Whew. Never panic - you can always work with it in some way!

While this frosting was delicious on this cake, the flavor was too much caramel and we didn't get enough of the burnt sugar syrup flavor. The Caramel Frosting was just too fudge-like too. I'm definitely going with the Fluffy White Frosting next time so we get more of the burnt sugar syrup flavor. It's so good, we decided that maybe a cocktail made from the leftover syrup would be nice. More experimentation needs to be done on that!

See - even on the photo you wouldn't even notice the broken cake if I hadn't told you!

We were able to cut almost the whole cake into slices, and I don't think anyone would have known the cake was broken if I hadn't said something (our kids enjoyed the rest of the cake at Sunday dinner). While taking a bit longer to make because of all the steps, which included the syrup making, this cake was absolutely amazing. I will absolutely be making this again, and who knows - maybe we'll share our cocktail recipe using this delicious syrup. Thanks for hanging in there with me for this very long and involved post, and I hope you don't let the tar-like syrup-making deter you. Have fun making this Burnt Sugar Cake and let me know how it turns out - send me pics!