Reviewed: May 10, 2012

This was 1 of the BEST recipes i've ever used for baking from scratch. The cake itself was good & I hadn't even frosted yet-i think thats because this recipe uses brown sugar-vs-white sgr. Altho the recipe calls for only vanilla extract, i use 1/2 pure almond & 1/2 vanilla-(good flavor combo). I used Cake Flour, i think thats why it was so moist. but, i shouldnt have sifted the flour becuz it is already presifted. I only use cake flour when i bake from scratch. it was so moist, it fell apart when i tried to get it out of the dish. I wont sift it next time. i had 2 start over, but used reg flour (i didnt hv enough cake flour left after the 1st try), which made the cake heavy & dry. baked it in a 9x13 glass dish, browned beautifully. it rose nicely w/the cake flour - was really flat & dense w/the regular flour. i, too, followed the directions for the frosting to the "tee", but it never got thick. I beat it for at least 5 min straight. so i drizzled it over the cake. i think i'll do what Paula "D" did w/her caramel frosting - add a little powered sugar to help thicken; well she added a lot, but thats 2 sweet 4 me. its a wonderful caramel sauce. i'll continue to use it as sauce or poke holes in my cake & drizzle that way. i refrigerated the caramel sauce & warmed it to drizzle over my crumbled cake that fell apart. it bounced bk to silkiness every time. Also, i salvaged & froze my first cake that fell apart, it warms very well out of the freezer-warm on defrost

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Reviewed: Jan. 21, 2012

Not the best cake at all! The cake was bland and icing was good, but have had better.

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Reviewer:

Kin123

Reviewed: Oct. 16, 2011

I just made this cake and it is soooooooooo good! The cake is moist & has flavor. I increased the recipe to 36 servings to make a 2 layer 9 in. cake. The icing took some time & attention, but was well worth it. I wanted to eat it straight out of the pan=) I will be using this recipe again.

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Reviewer:

Trina

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Reviewed: Sep. 25, 2011

Recipe does not yield a normal size 2 layer cake. The batter is really thick and the cook time is less than 30 minutes. Tasted okay but not a good recipe to follow.

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CrondaT

Home Town: Ringgold, Virginia, USA

Reviewed: Sep. 19, 2011

Cooked the cake for 20min like many suggested. It turned out wonderful and moist. Big hit!

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delicious

Reviewed: Aug. 8, 2011

I followed the directions for this cake to the letter. Was attempting to make a layer cake like the picture shown. Hardly had enough batter to fill 2 8" pans. Figured if the cake turned out, i would just make another batch. Cake came out of the oven, first one came out of the pan great, second one crumbled into many, many pieces. Tasted the crumbs and it was BLAND. BTW, my pans were greased with Crisco and floured. Very disappointed!

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stnortham

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Home Town: Salisbury, Maryland, USA

Reviewed: Jul. 5, 2011

First of all, the picture of the cake is deceiving because it looks nothing like that, especially if you're supposed to use a 9X13" pan as the recipe suggests! I totally agree with Lorna129 and JamS08, this was the worst cake that I ever made and wondered if this was a hoax recipe. The cake was dry as a bone and rose to the height of a pan of jiffy cornbread and didn't even taste as good as jiffy. I was so disappointed that I cried because I had spent money on all of those ingredients. I should have known something was wrong with this recipe when it didn't call for any white sugar at all because it was blander than bland. I didn't bother making the frosting and still have the heavy whipping cream in the fridge which I hope doesn't go to waste. This recipe was a huge disappointment!

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greatcook

Reviewed: Jun. 15, 2011

This is a great recipe. The frosting especially. I was a bit skeptical about the amount of milk and based on the reviews of some other cooks I started out using 3/4 cup. I whisked for a while and the batter was just to stiff and it was hard to get all the lumps out of the butter. I ended up adding 2 extra table spoons. This is meant to be a dense, heavy cake and I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much on its own. I used it as part of a layer cake with the One bowl chocolate cake III recipe on this site and it was fantastic. I used the caramel frosting as the fill. This frosting is fantastic but I don't think I would have enjoyed it covering an entire cake, personal taste. I used a chocolate frosting recipe from this site to frost the top and sides of the cake. The finished result got excellent reviews!

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Reviewed: Jan. 16, 2011

I made this cake as the recipe suggests, it made a 7in round two layer cake. So if you need more cake double the recipe. Other than that great cake! I will try it with cake flour next time instead of AP.

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Pastryprincess

Cooking Level: Professional

Reviewed: Jan. 6, 2011

When I baked this cake I was worried that the cake might be dry as per other reviews so instead of just milk, i used buttermilk which really gave it good moisture. I had no problems with the caramel frosting. I beat it on my electric mixer for 9 mins until I got the right consistency.

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