Saturday, September 3, 2011

Minnie's Caramel Cake - The Help

I was browsing Tastespotting a few months ago and came across this delicious looking rendition of Minnie's Caramel Cake - a recipe discussed in the very popular novel The Help. I showed it to my friends and we decided to have a Help party - see the movie and then eat cake together and discuss it. All of us have read the book so it should be a fun conversation.

After comparing our schedules we were dismayed to have to wait almost an entire month to see the movie together. But today the day has finally come and this is the cake that is in our future.

I was nominated to make the cake since I am the only one among us that has a dedicated to food blog and I also have cake pans. I was pretty confident with the recipe and was sure it would be easy to bake.


It turned out that it was easy to bake but the hard parts were things that always present difficulty to me when it comes to cake - getting the cakes out of the pan, stacking them, and getting the frosting consistency correct.

I followed the recipe exactly although I nearly omitted the 1/2 C of oil when I felt like the cake batter was already wet enough (I ended up putting a little less in) and since I haven't tasted the cake yet I'm not sure if it mattered.

My one tip for when you make the recipe, is that when you make the caramel frosting you must use it immediately. So have everything ready to move. You may want to have a helper at this time. If the caramel glaze starts to thicken it will be hard to pour and you will be moved to re-heat it on the stove. Don't do this! It will become slightly grainy. Just work quickly and you will not come across the issue. If you fear your ability to work quickly you may want to split the caramel recipe and make half of it first and half of it second so that it doesn't get thick.

2 comments:

Bao said...

You always have such pretty flowers & things. Oh, and the cake looks flippin' amazing, too!!

Carrie said...

Thanks! I rarely have flowers but if I do have them I make a point to get them in the picture with the food I made to add color! ;)