Golden Caramel Cake

Cake
1 box yellow cake mix
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs

Caramel Icing
1/2 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup reserved cake batter
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans, or spray with baking spray with flour.

2. In medium bowl, beat cake ingredients with electric mixer on low speed 1 minute, scraping bowl constantly (batter will be thick). Beat 2 minutes longer. Remove 1/2 cup of batter; cover and refrigerate to use in icing. Pour remaining batter into pans.

3. Bake and cool as directed on cake mix box.

4. To make icing, heat butter in 1-quart saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until brown; remove from heat. Stir in powdered sugar, cake batter and evaporated milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with wire whisk, until smooth, bubbly and almost thick; remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Cool slightly. Fill layers and frost cake with icing. Store loosely covered.

High-Altitude (3500-6500 ft): Increase milk to 1 1/4 cups. Omit sugar and baking powder.

Denise's Notes:
This cake is absolutely wonderful and the icing received rave reviews. I would suggest making it in a 9x13 pan. The icing doesn't make a large enough amount to actually ice the entire outside of the cake with a two layer cake. The two layers do not stay on top of each other because of the icing.

Chocolate Variation: I made this with the addition of a chocolate buttercream frosting. Turned out fabulous. I made it a two layer cake, poked holes in the bottom layer, put on the caramel icing from this recipe, a layer of chocolate frosting and then the second layer. I then frosted the whole cake with the chocolate frosting and drizzled more of the caramel icing. I think next time I will poke holes in the top layer and put more of the icing on before frosting the whole cake. When I was done frosting the cake I drizzled more of the caramel icing on top. Turned out great. This is the Buttercream Frosting recipe that I used. Enjoy!


(Recipe Courtesy of BettyCrocker.com)