Today I am 26!!
I have today off work, so the girls and I made my birthday cake yesterday. It was a Tie-Dye Salted Caramel Cake! And delicious doesn't even describe it!
So here is how we made it!
You will also need food coloring for 4 colors- we used fancy icing coloring in bright colors and regular food coloring- both worked.
FOR THE FROSTING: 2 sticks of salted butter, vanilla (not pictured), powdered sugar, and heavy whipping cream.
FOR THE SALTED CARAMEL SAUCE: Granulated sugar, 1 1/2 sticks of butter, Heavy Whipping Cream, Flaky Salt.
Mix the Box Cake, according to the instructions using the "Egg Whites" Recipe. (One yolk slipped in ours, and it did not ruin it- so don't panic if that happens!)
The cake mix made 4 cups, so split the mix evenly into 4 different bowls.
Add you coloring to each bowl. Using less color will make your cake seem brighter. We used the bright colors for the blue, orange, and pink, but the green was just regular food coloring (2 drops of green, 4 drops of yellow.)
Then butter and flour your pan.
Rub the butter all over the inside of your pan. Then dump some flour in there, and shake it around until it covers the whole inside. Turn it upside down and shake the excess out. A light dusting of flour will stay stuck to the butter.
Using a spatula, drop a few drops of each color randomly around the bowl. I used about 1/3 of the batter each time, so the colors would be varied. Make sure not to wiggle, jiggle, or stir the cake so your colors do not mix.
Put your cake in the oven, and bake according to the instructions on the box.
Allow it to cool in the pan, until the pan is cool enough to touch, then flip it out, and allow the cake to cool until it reaches room temperature.
(It took about an hour between coming out of the oven and icing it.) When you flip your cake out of the pan begin making your caramel sauce.
**Prep all your ingredients first, because you can not stop whisking or your caramel will burn**
You need
3 cups of sugar
12 Tablespoons of butter (cut into pieces)
1 cup of heavy cream at room temperature (it will be by the time you get to add it)
1 Tablespoon of Flaky Salt
Add 3 cups of sugar to a large pan, and turn it on medium- high heat.
Begin whisking, and whisk constantly. Your sugar will begin to clump a little,
then clump more,
then melt into a delicious caramel sauce.
Add the butter all at once, and be careful because it will bubble furiously.
Whisk until the butter all melts completely.
Add the cream (it will bubble again), and once that is all mixed in remove from the heat, and add your salt.
Pour into a jar. It can keep in the refrigerator for 2 weeks. (Leave one out warm for the cake.)
Now it it time to make the Butter Cream Frosting.
Add two sticks of room temperature butter, and 3 cups of powdered sugar to your mixer. (I start with the paddle attachment until the butter is crumbly, then switch to the whisk attachment.)
Whisk on medium to high, for 1 minute.
Add 1 tsp of vanilla and 1 tablespoon of whipping cream. Whisk again until those are mixed in completely.
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Your cake should be cool by now.
Cut your cake in half (if you would like,) and be delighted with it's adorableness!!
Frost the middle of the cake, and drizzle some caramel sauce (if you don't have an eight year old telling you that caramel is gross.)
Replace the top of the cake, and frost away!
You can drizzle the whole cake with caramel sauce, or drizzle individual pieces.
Sprinkle/garnish with more flaky salt.
too bad caramel only comes in brown...
