Caramel Cake is usually a massive three layer assault on your pancreas’ insulin producing capabilities. Some famous TV chefs have even developed diabetes as a result (no names please).
And why does it have to be that way? Go to a fine restaurant and you’ll frequently be gifted with a caramel or two with your after dinner coffee. Intense and small, it’s the Danny DeVito of desserts. So why can’t the cake follow suit? You just don’t need a lot of this to get your sugar on and if you do there are always seconds as long as you slice ’em thin.
Just as tasty but more modest in in its dimensions is this two layer version which I scaled down from the usual three. Also, it’s an oil based cake as opposed to a butter cake. I tried a few versions of the butter kind, but oil based seems to complement better the taste of the nuts and caramel. And as for the icing this is the lighter fluffier version, not the praliney drizzled kind.
It’s simple as I could make it – a plain vanilla batter studded with toasted ground pecans and a nimbus of salted caramel icing. Enjoy!
- For the cake:
- 4 large eggs
- 2 cups sugar
- ¾ cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup plain full fat yogurt (or sour cream)
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 tsp. almond extract
- 2 cups sifted cake flour
- 1½ tsps. baking powder
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 cup toasted pecans coarsely ground (half for the cake, other half for the icing)
- For the icing:
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 2½ tablespoons water
- ⅓ cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1½ sticks of butter
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- ½ cup chopped pecans
- For the cake:
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Toast pecans for 5 minutes and coarsely grind.
- Butter 2 seven inch baking pans. You can also line the bottom with parchment buttered on both sides.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and salt.
- Mix eggs and sugar for about 1 minute till fluffy & pale in color.
- Add vanilla & almond extracts to the yogurt.
- Alternate adding small amounts of the flour mixture and the milk. Beat until just combined.
- Add oil and mix until combined, then add nuts.
- Divide batter between the two pans and cook for about 35 minutes until light brown and pulled away from the edges.
- For the icing:
- Cook the sugar and water over a medium flame until amber (about 8 minutes).
- Take it off the flame slightly before it reaches the stage of darkness that you want. It will continue to cook from the pan's retained heat.
- Now stir in ½ a stick of butter and when it is melted, stir in the cream, salt and vanilla and set aside.
- In a mixer beat 1 stick of butter well and gradually incorporate the powdered sugar.
- Add the cooled caramel mixture and finally stir in the chopped pecans.
Without the nuts this is a good basic white cake recipe which you can vary by adding different extracts or by substituting flavored olive oils for the oil called for in the recipe.
You can grind the nuts in a food processor but I prefer one of those small hand grinders that they have at most stores that carry cooking utensils. The reason for this is that with the hand grinder the nuts fall to the bottom when they are ground. With a food processor they can quickly turn into nut butter if you pulse too many times.
