Caramel Frosted Cake

My mother-in-law was telling me how her mother made a caramel cake that was so good. She had lost the recipe, so figuring it was on the back of a box, I looked it up. There is a great website called back of the box, or something like that and there it was. Most recipes people pass down really are from the back of boxes, so I tried it out. I thought the instructions were a little weird, but it was really good.

Golden Caramel Cake-
1 package yellow cake mix
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted and cooled
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs
Caramel Icing (below)


1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 2 round pans, 9x1 1/2 inches.

2. Beat all ingredients except Caramel Icing in medium bowl with electric mixer on low speed 1 minute, scraping bowl constantly (batter will be thick). Beat 2 minutes longer. Remove 1/2 cup of batter; cover and refrigerate to use in icing. Pour remaining batter into pans.

3. Bake 28 to 33 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire rack. Cool completely, about 1 hour. Fill layers and frost cake with Caramel Icing.

Caramel Icing

1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup reserved cake batter
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla


Heat butter in 1-quart saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until brown; remove from heat. Stir in powdered sugar, cake batter and evaporated milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with wire whisk, until smooth, bubbly and almost thick; remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Cool slightly.

Special Touch: Caramel and chocolate are natural companions. Drizzle caramel-frosted cake servings with melted chocolate chips.