Happy Birthday to me!
I want to share my birthday cake with you today AND over 60 beautiful birthday cakes from many wonderful bloggers!
This year, I’m having an Ultimate Caramel Cake, which is a homemade classic yellow cake, filled with Dolce de Leche Buttercream and topped with homemade caramel! Wowzers!
I love making my own birthday cake. Well, I don’t mind it actually.
I get exactly what I want and I get to experiment with different cakes. You know that I hate buying cakes at bakeries because of all the sugar they use to make their cakes, it makes my teeth hurt. There is one bakery in town in particular that puts so much sugar in their frosting, you can’t taste anything else. Yuck!
Don’t get me wrong, I like sweets as much as any girl. I just like to be able to taste what I’m eating and not just the sugar that went into it. Many of you already know that I tend to cut sugar in my desserts and of course, I cut some sugar in this cake as well. It is completely not a big deal if you want to add more sugar to cake and buttercream! Everyone’s taste is different and this cake will be fabulous either way!
Let me just mention one thing… Dulce de Leche Buttercream filling = heaven!! I could just sit there dipping strawberries into it all day. Amazing!
Ultimate Caramel Cake and Cake Collection
Ingredients
- Cake:
- 3/4 cup butter softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 eggs room temperature
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cups whole milk
- Dulce se Leche Buttercream:
- 1/2 cup butter softened
- 10 oz Dulce de Leche
- 2-3 Tbsp of meringue powder for stabilizing
- If you prefer to use powder sugar, use 1/2 to 1 cup of powder sugar.
- Homemade Caramel:
- 3/4 cup of heavy cream
- 2 cup of white granulated sugar
- 8 tbs butter
Instructions
- Cake:
- Preheat oven to 350. Grease and lightly flour 3, 8-inch round baking pans. (To flour the pans: grease with cooking spray then add some flour. Pat baking pan so that it's lightly covered in flour all over the inside, then turn the pan upside down and lightly pat to discard loose flour. **I do recommend using 3 cake pans at a time because it will be much easier to divide all the batter equally among the pans.)
- Have all your ingredients ready.
- Beat butter in the electric mixer on high, for about a minute. Add sugar and beat for another minute or two, until light and fluffy.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating on medium-high speed after each addition. Add vanilla extract.
- Sift flour, baking powder and salt together.
- Lower the speed to low and add half the flour mixture.
- Add half the milk.
- Add remaining flour and after it's just incorporated, add remaining milk.
- Scrape sides and bottom of the bowl and mix until all ingredients are just combined.
- Separate the batter between the baking pans, evenly, and bake for 18-23 minutes.
- Let the cakes cool for about 10 minutes and then take them out of the pans. Let them cool completely on a rack before adding filling or it will melt.
- Buttercream:
- Beat butter in the electric mixer for a couple of minutes, on high speed, and add Dulce de Leche. Beat for 5-7 minutes, until light in color and fluffy. Beat in meringue powder, make sure it's mixed in well and set aside the frosting. (If using powder sugar, beat it with butter.)
- Caramel:
- * Do not walk away. Keep a close eye on sugar.*
- Preheat a heavy-bottom sauce pot over medium heat. Spread sugar in the pot evenly.
- When sugar begins to melt, start stirring with a wooden spoon. Keep stirring slowly as the sugar melts and starts to turn brown.
- When the sugar reached deep brown color (350 degrees F), add butter and stir constantly. (Be careful here, the mixture will bubble and it lava-hot!)
- When butter is all melted, you will notice that it gets thicker and looks more like caramel (You may have to switch to silicone covered whisk here). Take off heat.
- Slowly, add heavy cream while stirring. When the mixture is all smooth, let it stand until cools to room temperature and settles.
- When everything is cooled, divide filling among two center cake layers. Pour about half of caramel over the cake. You can use remaining caramel on individual slices of refrigerate it.
Recipe Notes
Recipe from Lyuba @ willcookforsmiles.com. All images and content are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to share this recipe, please simply link back to this post for the recipe. Thank you.
Some wonderful bloggers shared their favorite cake recipes with me and I definitely want to show them off. Now, I will enjoy a slice of my cake while looking through these gorgeous birthday cakes!
Look through this collection and VISIT any recipe that stands out to your. For individual recipes, just click on the photos below OR save the WHOLE collection by pinning the above image!
Erin @ The Spiffy Cookie
Wow with all that caramel oozing all over the place it really is the ultimate caramel cake!
lyuba
😀 Thank you so much, Erin!
Mike@TheIronYou
HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY Lyuba!!!!! I hope you had a great one (although by the look of that amazing cake I’m pretty sure you did!) 🙂
lyuba
Awe, thank you, Mike!! It sure did! Cake was great too 🙂
marcie
Happy birthday, Lyuba! What a delicious cake to celebrate with — that caramel dripping down the sides is more than I can stand! Great round-up of cakes, too. I prefer homemade cakes to bakeries as well, especially when they look like this. 🙂
lyuba
Thank you so much, Marcie!! 😀
Jenna
As I was reading your blog this morning Lyuba my husband walked by and stopped in his tracks when he saw this caramel cake! I guess I will be making this soon! It does look super fabulous!
lyuba
Haha, I hope you will, Jenna!! Thank you so much 🙂
Mary
OMG, I wish there was a way to eat your photos. As soon as I saw your email with these photos, I came running.
lyuba
Right! Someone should invent that!!
Thank you so much, I’m glad you came over, Mary!
Lisa @ Cooking with Curls
Wow, that cake is insane Lyuba!! I want to stick my fork through the screen and grab a bite!
lyuba
Wouldn’t it be awesome?!!
Thank you so much, Lisa!
Ginnie
This cake looks amazing, Lyuba! Hope you had an awesome birthday!
lyuba
Thank you so much, Ginnie! I sure did 🙂
Cathy
Love the ingredients in this cake. Looked under Google for “Ultimate Caramel Cakes and found your website, “Will Cook for Smiles”.
So excited when I saw this recipe!!!
Thank you!!!
Question regarding Dulce de Leche
Does the can just get poured in to butter cream?
Kate Van asselt
Where can I find dulce de leche?
lyuba
Hi Kate! Dulce de leche can usually be found in two places at the grocery stores. Some store it in the ethnic food section and others store it next to the evaporated milk. You can always ask the store clerk and they should be able to direct you right to it 🙂