A light, tender yellow butter cake with a classic boiled icing, traditionally made from burnt sugar or for more modern versions, with boiled brown sugar.
Southern Caramel Cake
As soon as I knew they were making a movie from the book The Help (#ad), I knew I wanted to make a caramel cake for the website. Really, from the first time I read about Minny's caramel cake in the book in 2009, I knew I'd be making one. There is just something about this book that makes you want a caramel cake... and maybe never want to eat a chocolate pie - at least for awhile. You'll know what I mean on all of the above counts if you read the book. Note: As an Amazon.com Services LLC Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases linked in my posts and marked as #ad or #affiliate links.
My intention had been to make this cake over the past weekend, but I was dragging my tail-end here recently thanks to fighting off a summer cold while simultaneously pulling a muscle in my back and found my motivation lacking.
With the film making its debut at the theater Wednesday, I decided to make the cake anyway, and found myself up at 2:00 a.m. that morning icing a cake!
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When I got up later, I decided I wanted to go see the movie on it's opening day after all, and I'm so glad that I did. As I mentioned over on Facebook, I literally cried in the very opening scene, then I laughed till I cried, and even got a headache from trying not to cry.
It was a hilariously funny movie, that touched just about every possible emotion including, as a native Mississippian, moments of shame, sadness and heartbreak. It was the best movie and very true to the book, and while I rarely read any book more than once, I am on my fourth read of this one. I not only own it on audio, but I have it as an e-book and in a regular paper book (#ad) I can hold in my hand.
That is how much I love this book that is now being referred to everywhere as a new classic.
I'll be the first in line to own a DVD copy of the movie too. Watching it made me fall in love with the characters of Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter all over again, and I can't help but to find a little bit of me in all of them.
The villain, Two Slice Hilly, was as nasty as I thought she would be, and I do confess, I held no empathy for her having eaten a bit of er, shall we say, humble pie?
Bryce Dallas Howard earned herself an Oscar on this one, I'm certain of that. The Mad Men reminiscent set scenery was 1960s authentic, as were the hairstyles and fashion, and I am in absolute car envy of that gorgeous red Mercury Turnpike Cruiser of Celia's - identified by one of our readers as a friend's car.
Anyway, we're here for the cake aren't we, so just get the book, read it and go see the movie!
In the book, caramel cake is mentioned six times, and in one scene of the movie, there is a quick glimpse of a sliced 7-layer caramel cake on a kitchen table at Minny's house.
Even the movie cake made by Charleston South Carolina native, and founder of the acclaimed Caroline's Cakes bakery in Annapolis, Maryland, Caroline Ragsdale Reutter, has a story all its own.
Well... truth is, as you can clearly tell by the pictures here, I'm not really much of a baker, much less a cake-maker, and I'm not about to take on that tedious task of cutting seven layers, so I hope you'll settle for my humble little three layer cake!
Caramel cake has always been one of those classic southern cakes that graces the table only for major holidays or other very special occasions like birthdays, though sometimes you'll run across one at a reunion or on a funeral spread.
The cake itself is really just a basic homemade yellow butter cake, but what really sets it apart is the caramel icing.
Traditionally made as a burnt sugar icing, it's can be a tedious process that involves melting granulated sugar in a cast iron skillet until caramelized, added it to a boiled sugar, cooking to soft-ball stage and frankly takes a bit of practice to get right. Most people today opt for a shortcut brown sugar version, which though not quite the same taste, is what I used. Even Miss Caroline said it took her two years to perfect her bakery cake and icing, but if you're up to tackling it, I've included one version of a burnt sugar recipe adapted from The Blue Willow Inn Bible (#ad). Thankfully, Hommie Holly, one of our readers over on the Facebook page, was kind enough to share her tried and true, foolproof homemade caramel icing with us too. You can see a picture of her icing on the Facebook page.
When I posted a picture of my cake on Facebook Wednesday before taking off to see the movie, one of the readers said just looking at the picture made his "teeth hurt."
Well, I can certainly see that because mercy! It indeed is one sweet icing - sort of like that whole chess pie thing. Which, besides my lack of talent in cake making, might be another reason that you don't see a lot of cakes on my site since I'm more of a savory kinda gal. At any rate, you will really only need thin layers of the icing, unless you have an incredible sweet tooth.
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