Caramel Topping Cake Recipe

This past week I wanted to recreate a salted caramel drip cake I made a few years ago. This meant I needed to make a batch of my caramel drizzle recipe!!

I use this caramel drizzle recipe to make my caramel frosting and caramel drips on my cakes! It’s super versatile and can be used in so many different ways.

I actually struggled naming this post because it’s so versatile! This recipe can be used for everything from adding caramel drips to cakes to filling macarons.

The Best Caramel Buttercream Frosting

I know that making caramel sauce from scratch can seem intimidating if you’ve never tried it before. When I was a kid, I remember seeing caramel made in giant copper kettles at candy stores.

I was convinced it was some complicated process that must require all kinds of special equipment. But it doesn’t have to be complicated!

My caramel drizzle recipe can be made without a candy thermometer and uses just four ingredients. Did I mention a batch comes together in about 5 minutes?? It doesn’t get much easier than that!

Caramel Cake Recipe W/ Caramel Frosting The Food Charlatan

My biggest tip when doing this is to add the sugar in gradually. I add about a quarter of a cup at a time.

This helps the sugar liquify more quickly and reduces the risk of big clumps forming. It makes a world of a difference.

I didn’t know to do that when I first started making caramel and I used to just dump it all in at once.

Vegan Chocolate Cake With Vegan Salted Caramel Frosting (gluten Free And Lower Sugar Options)

The caramel will still turn out if you add all the sugar at once, but it takes a lot longer to melt down and is less smooth.

While this caramel drizzle recipe doesn’t use a ton of ingredients, you might not have them all on hand. Or if you have food allergies or restrictions, I’ve got you covered.

This caramel drizzle is the perfect thickness for drizzling over ice cream, adding caramel drips to a cake, or even filling cakes and cupcakes!

Pumpkin Cake With Salted Caramel Frosting

I use this caramel recipe to make the salted caramel frosting in my caramel macarons and it’s one of my favorite flavors.

If you try this caramel drizzle recipe, let me know what you think of it by leaving a rating and comment below.

I like to pour my caramel in a squirt bottle (to drizzle over cakes) but you can also store it in an airtight container like a mason jar or Tupperware container.

Old Fashioned Southern Caramel Layer Cake Recipe

Don’t you need water with the sugar in the pot? The recipe reads as though you just put dry sugar into the pot? Is that accurate?

I just made it... AMAZING! LOVE IT! Perfect! It's my first time making it. It is so easy and cooks quickly! One piece of advice: get all the ingredients, measure them, put them next to you, slowly follow the recipe, and cook it!

[…] cinnamon rolls can be easily customized to your liking. Try adding chopped nuts, raisins, or even a drizzle of caramel sauce to make them even more delicious. Serve them with a hot cup of coffee or tea and treat yourself to […]

Easy Caramel Cake Recipe

[…] vodka and 1 cup of fresh milk in a glass of eggnog. Fill a cup halfway with ice and top with a caramel drizzle. While caramel vodka is available in stores, it can also be made at home. Infusing this drink is a […]

Delicious! I have a too-powerful stove top so I thought I’d turn down the heat. Nope. It made chunks of sugar. The medium heat is needed. I also kept the heat on because the butter and sugar separated, or didn’t meld, at first. Once, the cream and salt were added, turned off the heat and kept stirring and stirring until everything melded. Absolutely perfect! Thank you!!

Phew!! As I started reading you comment I got worried, but I'm so glad it all worked out in the end :) Thank you for sharing!!Have you ever made a Caramel Cake with Caramel Icing recipe? It’s a classic Southern treat! But instead of a layer cake, I made it into a thin sheet cake. Less time baking, more time eating, I say! It’s really easy to put together.

Pecan Cake With Salted Caramel Frosting

The other day I walked into the kitchen to find my 1-year-old baby Valentine standing on a chair by the kitchen counter, eating an entire stick of BUTTER. Such are the risks of softening butter on the counter in this house.

I snapped this picture literally minutes after I had finished giving her a bath to clean up her adventures in the toilet. She rewarded me with butter hair. These kids! It’s a good thing she’s so cute.

I’ve been a little obsessed with sheet cake lately. I posted the recipe for The Only Texas Sheet Cake You’ll Ever Need just a few weeks ago, after testing it 3 times. And then I moved straight into the caramel version. (Side note, do you pronounce it car-mel, or care-uh-mel? I grew up saying car-mel, but in the past few years for some reason switched to care-uh-mel, and now I feel like a pretentious food snob every time I say it. The truth comes out!!)

Caramel Cake Recipe {with Caramel Frosting}

What I really wanted was Caramel Cake, the Southern kind with layers, but without all the fuss of actual, well, layers. The cake part of a traditional Southern Caramel Cake is not actually caramel-flavored; it’s a yellow or white cake that’s there to soak up all the caramel icing goodness. The cake part of today’s recipe, though, actually tastes caramel-y because we’re using 2 cups of brown sugar. And we’re throwing it into a sheet pan to bake so that it’s done in 20 minutes!

This cake recipe is soooo simple. Kind of the opposite of real Caramel Cake, ha. Here’s a basic overview and I’ll give you some more details and photos below!

I like this cake best in an 18×13 inch half sheet pan (thinner cake means a higher frosting ratio!) but you’ve got options for sheet cake. Be sure to adjust the bake time according to the pan size you select. Cooking times will always vary because everyone’s oven is different.

Caramel Apple Layer Cake With Caramel Frosting

And now for the icing. Legit, from scratch, pour-straight-up-dry-sugar-into-a-pan caramel icing takes like an hour to make, stirring a pot the whole time. Noooo thank you. I’m all about the brown sugar shortcuts. Bless you, brown sugar. Here’s a quick overview!

You still get that deep caramel flavor by boiling it on the stove with some butter and evaporated milk, and it only takes a few minutes. Much easier than the dry sugar method.

After boiling, you cool for several minutes in an ice bath to thicken it up. I LOVE this method for cooked frosting, and use it in several recipes, including Nana’s Famous Fudge Brownies and this Peach Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting. It makes the frosting thicken up so nice and smooth. I eat it by the spoonful! (It’s much better than fistfuls of butter.)

Chocolate Caramel Cake

Frosting is thick enough to be spreadable. It stays soft on the edges. Imagine the frosting on your favorite Chocolate Cake. Swirly soft for days.

Icing is thin enough to be drizzled on top of a cake, and usually hardens on the edges (like today’s caramel frosting!) It will look crackly when you cut into it, like the icing on this Glazed Lemon Bread. Today’s caramel frosting is kind of like a frosting-icing hybrid.

Store this cake covered on the counter! If you leave it in the pan you baked it in and don’t have a lid for that pan, it’s going to dry out pretty fast, even if you cover with plastic wrap. I like to transfer it to a large rectangular food storage container. Keep it only in one layer if you need the frosting to stay nice for presentation. It also freezes beautifully, if well sealed.

Caramel Icing Glaze

First you should ask yourself, am I REALLY going to have any leftovers? And then you should probably pop the cake in the freezer, if by some trick of fate the cake has already been out a few days. Frozen cake is good for up to 3 months.

Look at this you guys. Can you see how this literally looks like I’m slicing up a square of soft caramel? It really is caramel, with the added bonus of cake underneath it! It’s so incredibly rich, and so good. A little bit goes a long way. (For some people who are not me.) This cake feeds a crowd and would be a great dessert to bring for game day!

Have you ever had Caramel Cake with Caramel Icing? It’s a classic Southern treat! But instead of a layer cake, I made this into a thin sheet cake. Less time baking, more time eating, I say! It’s really easy to put together.

Salted Caramel Frosting Recipe (5 Ingredients)

*I like this cake best in an 18×13 inch pan (makes for a thinner cake) but here are the times for other size pans:

If you are baking this in a 9×13 inch cake pan, bake for 23-25 minutes. If you do a 15×10 jelly roll pan, bake for about 20 minutes. If you bake it in an 18×13 half sheet pan, bake for about 17-20 minutes.

Calories: 452

Chocolate Cake With Salted Caramel Frosting #chocolateforjoan