Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Double-Decker Salted Caramel Cake

April 23, 2024 at 8:47 pm | Posted in breakfast things, BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, layer cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 8 Comments
Tags: baking, brekkie, cake

This month we have a Double-Decker Salted Caramel Cake to celebrate all the April TWD babies: Diane, Kayte and yours truly. My birthday was at the start of the month, but I actually didn’t bake this till this past Sunday, which was Kayte’s big day, so I blew out a candle made a wish for her. This cake was one of her picks, and it’s two layers of soft brown sugar cake, filled and frosted with a sticky caramel icing.

Any good caramel cake should start with a good homemade caramel sauce. There are two tricks to avoid a tooth-ache here…the first is to be brave and take your caramel syrup to a pretty dark place (but don’t go over the edge and burn it, because that is really no bueno), and the second is to season the finished sauce well with salt. The frosting is just a mix of this caramel sauce and powdered sugar with a little heavy cream added, and is a soft consistency that’s more like a thick glaze than a swoopy, swirly frosting. I thought it seemed like not enough when I made it, but scraping my mixing bowl well, I was able to fill and frost the cake, and I think a thin layer is actually all you really need with this one.

For the cake component, I did a bit of fiddling because I wanted to make a smaller 6-inch version, as is my usual MO for the two of us. Looking at the ingredient list and thinking about how best to tackle scaling things back, I first decided that I wanted to use a single full egg and just forget the extra whites. Then I deduced that amount of egg by weight would roughly correspond to 5 tablespoons of butter, and from there I used my calculator to help me do the math to scale down the rest of the ingredients proportionally (about 42% of the original amounts). And then I decided that, while I do have a deep removable-bottom 6-inch pan I could have used here to keep in line with the recipe, I preferred to split the cake batter into two regular cake pans. I don’t really like dividing cakes with a knife– I never get the layers perfectly even or perfectly level and there are always too many crumbs. Also something about having to bake a soft and fluffy cake like this one for 40+ minutes doesn’t sit right with me, and I figured two thinner layers would be out of the oven in way less time. And then, because I am a lazy auto-pilot baker who doesn’t read through a recipe first, I didn’t realize I was supposed to swirl caramel sauce into the cake batter before the pans went into the oven. So I didn’t do that bit. I was kind of mad at myself, but my layers baked beautifully in about 25 minutes, and instead of a caramel swirl inside the batter, I just gave each layer a thin caramel sauce schmear before frosting.

Well that was a pretty long post to come to a short and sweet summary– this cake is delicious! The cake itself is super soft and really flavorful (and it’s awesome drizzled with a little bourbon, in case you were wondering) and the frosting is just the right amount to not to make your fillings zing. I decorated my cake on top with some mixed crunchy pearls and on the sides with some chocolate flakes that I’ve had for like a million years and can now finally say I used up. A successful and satisfying birthday bake!

If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!

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Wow Steph! Gorgeous, as usual and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the minifying math here!

Comment by Mardi (eat. live. travel. write.)— April 24, 2024 #

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- yes- a calculator and a scale are my kitchen bffs!
  
  Comment by steph (whisk/spoon)— April 25, 2024 #
  
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Steph, this is a beautiful cake. The deep color, smooth texture, the pearly toppings — and every detail of it, are eyecatching. I was not aware of all the birthdays in April until now. In fact, my husband and my daughter both have end-of-April birthdays. I don’t think they’d like my cake. For sure, your cake would appeal to them, my critics. Happy belated birthday!

Comment by Shirley @ EverOpenSauce— April 24, 2024 #

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- thank you!!!
  
  Comment by steph (whisk/spoon)— April 25, 2024 #
  
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Happy Birthday! I think your cake looks great. You did quite the math problem in making it.

Comment by Diane Zwang— April 30, 2024 #

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- i was a math major, but this is about as advanced as my math gets these days😂
  
  Comment by steph (whisk/spoon)— April 30, 2024 #
  
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Happy Birthday Steph!!…just getting around to commenting on these. Hope you had a nice celebration! Your cake is just stunning in every way! Truly a bakery sensation that people would love to buy. I am glad you enjoyed this one…I feel like most didn’t and surprisingly, my family and group loved this one! So interesting how some recipes hit or fail and not the same with everyone.

Comment by isthisakeeper— May 6, 2024 #

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- thank you!! I thought was absolutely delicious!
  
  Comment by steph (whisk/spoon)— May 6, 2024 #
  
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