Caramel Cake. (June 2001)

When Stephen returned from Mississippi he told me that everywhere he went they served caramel cake, which he loved. I had never heard of caramel cake before, but i was certainly intrigued. So I tracked down a recipe (on the web, actually, because I couldn't find one in any of my books) and made it last night.

This is actually a pretty nice cake, and one of the few recently that I've made from scratch. The batter makes 3 9-inch round layers, so I ended up having to run down to Fante's to get another cake pan. (The pan is actually much better than the ones I've been using, which are from Ikea. I think I'll just buy 2 more next time I'm in South Philly).

The caramel is extremely sweet, but the cake itself is much less so, and it has ground almonds in it to boot, which add a slightly bitter quality which really balances out the caramel quite nicely.

Problems: Since I was using 2 different types of pans, the layer I baked in the ikea pan didn't rise as much and wasn't level, so i had to shave some off the top to keep the cake flat because I was afraid the layers would slide off the caramel if everything wasn't straight. When I went to ice the cake, the caramel was running everywhere because it's so hot in my kitchen, so I popped it in the fridge overnight and that solved the problem just fine.