"Throw Your Diet out the Window" Cake

November's Daring Bakers Challenge was sugar packed, ensuring that anyone even trying to avoid the sweets would gobble this cake down without a second thought. Yes, it was that good! I devoured this like I'd never had cake before.

The challenge was Shuna Fish Lydon's Caramel Cake with Carmelized Butter Frosting. If your mouth isn't watering yet, you're obviously not human. The challenge was co-hosted by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity, Alex of Blondie and Brownie and Jenny of Foray Into Food.

This was SO much fun. The caramel syrup (that was used to flavor both the cake and the frosting) was crazy to make - it was like a science experiment in my very own kitchen! Although, it did make me feel bad that Steve had just scrubbed the stovetop earlier that day. Needless to say, having caramel flying and sputtering about all over the kitchen wasn't the nicest way to say "thank you." Fortunately I had a lot of mini cakes to fork over as a peace offering!

Originally, the recipe just makes one 9-inch cake. Since we really didn't have anything going on last week when I made the cake, I didn't know what we'd do with a big old cake (besides eat ourselves into a stupor). Instead, I made three 4-inch cakes (which I then stacked and frosted) and three heartshaped cakes using my mini heart springform pans. The hearts were harder to frost and I was lacking patience, so they didn't make it to the photo shoot! One of them did, however, make it downstairs to my neighbors who were celebrating 6 months of marriage, aww. Making some "baby" cakes is an easier way to spread the cake love around so you don't end up wondering what to do with the 1,000+ sweet calories sitting in your kitchen.

Overall, a really fun challenge, and a recipe that I would most definitely pull out again when I really want to woo someone with cake.