Too easy to taste this good: Quick Caramel Cake

No reason to tell them why this sweet, buttery caramel cake is so easy to make—just bask in the compliments. Recipe below.

[su_dropcap style=”flat”]I[/su_dropcap]’m a Midwestern, urban woman—the daughter of Eastern European immigrants. The desserts of my childhood tasted of cherry, chocolate, sweet cheese, cinnamon. Some things never crossed my path and, when I first ran across them, I thought they were weird. Too sweet and oddly sticky. How could people like them, much less want them and seek them out? One of those flavors was caramel. Seriously, what?

Now, however, I am an adult, and I love pretty much everything, caramel included. But somehow I had never heard of caramel cake. Then, for some reason, on our recent trip to St Louis, I seemed to see it mentioned everywhere. That was the first time that I realized how beloved it is and, for many people, how deeply embedded it is in their traditions of family and place. Their caramel cake recipes are family heirlooms.

This is not anyone’s family heirloom recipe—it starts with a boxed mix, and then mashes up various Internet approaches. You knock it together in a couple of quick steps. Bake the cake early in the day and go about your life. Then make the icing an hour or so before your company shows up.

That said, there is some skill involved. As you see from the photo, I could have made the icing look better. But I could not have made it taste better. It tastes fantastic. It tastes like magic, like the best surprise party, like storm clouds are suddenly parting, and four magic elves have turned up in your kitchen and you are their queen and they just want you to feel good all the time.

And it’s not hard to make. Given the choice between whipping up a batch of cookies and making this cake, I would definitely go for the cake every time. And it brings way more pleasure and firepower than any mere cookie.  In fact, when we served it to my sister this weekend, she immediately requested it for her next birthday.

Quick Caramel Cake
Serves 12

For the cake:
1 box Duncan Hines Golden Butter Cake Mix
(+ the 3 eggs and 7 tablespoons of butter the mix calls for)

For the caramel icing:
1 cup white sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1-1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 to 1-1/4 cups powdered sugar, sifted right before you start cooking

First, prepare the cake according to the directions on the box, using a bundt pan. Cool the cake completely—15 or 20 minutes after taking it out of the oven, invert it onto the plate or cake stand you’d like to serve it on and center it nicely.

Once the cake is totally cool, make the icing. I used a 3.5 quart heavy stainless steel pot—the thick bottom and high sides really helped to contain the ingredients during the more exuberant parts of this process.

Pour the white sugar into the pan. Over medium heat, stir it constantly with a wooden spoon to melt it. At first, as it starts to melt, it will clump up and look like you are doing the wrong thing. You’re not. The sugar will pretty quickly liquefy and turn golden. When it has entirely melted and is uniformly amber, add the butter, all at once—take care, the sugar will bubble like mad. Stir and cook for about two minutes.

Next, whisk in the cream, adding it a little at a time. With each dash of cream, everything will seethe and bubble madly. When all the cream has been incorporated, boil the icing for one minute. Add the kosher salt.

Turn the heat to low, then start whisking in the powdered sugar. Use a metal whisk. Stop adding sugar when this gets to the consistency you like. I used the whole 1-1/4 cups of powdered sugar, which was not quite as pourable as I would have liked—next time I will probably use not much more than 1 cup, for a more fluid result.

Pour the icing on the cake, taking care to let it run down handsomely and not to excess. The icing will set quickly. Then it’s ready to serve.

You may also have a fair amount of icing left over—I know I did. Refrigerate it and later in the week you can reheat it gently and pour it over ice cream.

Kitchen Notes

No bundt pan? No problem. Prepare the cake in two 9-inch round pans. Make the icing a bit thicker; use it between the layers and then frost all around the outside, spreading with an offset spatula.

Icing tricks. When you are getting ready to ice the cake, keep a bowl of hot water and your whisk at hand. If the icing seems to be setting up too fast, add a teaspoon or so of hot water and whisk. As you top the cake, sometimes things may seem too stiff tending toward lumpy. Some cooks solve this problem by gently deploying a hair dryer to melt and smooth the finish.