I promised this cake was coming this week and I am so excited to share the recipe with you!

I made a salted caramel sauce with this cake and shared it earlier this week on the blog. It is amazing on ice cream or by itself…but wow is it great with this cake! The cake is a basic vanilla bean white cake smothered in two layers of caramel sauce and vanilla bean frosting!

It is super rich but the salted caramel helps balance it out. Because of the layer of caramel the cake also remains very dense.

I found this cake online and thought it looked amazing. It is easier than a typical layer cake because you don’t have to spend much time frosting it or evening out the edges or top.

You could adjust this style cake in so many ways with caramel, strawberry or chocolate sauce and any frosting you want!

Keeping my fingers crossed that this was the last snow here in Chicago! I hope you all have a great weekend planned.  Enjoy celebrating St. Patrick’s Day!!

Recipe: Vanilla Bean Salted Caramel Layer Cake

Ingredients: 

1 1/2 Cups Granulated Sugar

12 Tablespoons Butter, Softened

3 Eggs, Room Temperature

1/2 Vanilla Bean, Seeded/Scraped (Or 3 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract)

2 1/4 Cups All Purpose Flour

2 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 1/4 Cup Whole Milk

1 Cup Salted Caramel Sauce

For Frosting:

2 Sticks Butter, Softened

4 Cups Powdered Sugar

Seeds from 1/2 Vanilla Bean (or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract)

1/2 Cup Salted Caramel Sauce

2 Tablespoons Cream

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter, flour and line the bottoms of 2 8×8 round cake pans. Set them aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine butter and sugar. Beat well until light and fluffy and then add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl.

Add vanilla and beat well, about 1 minute.

In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour by alternating with flour and milk, about 3 different additions. Do not over-beat flour, mix until just combined.

Pour batter evenly into prepared cake pans and place in oven for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool in pans for about 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

While cooling you can make the frosting.

Beat butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Add sugar and slowly mix to combine, beating well after sugar has combined into butter (otherwise you will have a powder mess all over!). Add vanilla bean seeds to frosting and mix, finally adding milk, a bit at a time until you reach a desired consistency.

Place one cake on a cake plate and poke with a fork to make small holes for caramel. Spread caramel (I did about 1/3 cup) over first layer and then cover with a generous amount of frosting.

Place the final cake layer on top of that and poke with a fork to form holes again. Follow with a layer of caramel and top that with the remaining frosting.

Serve and enjoy!

NOTE: If you don’t have time to make your own caramel sauce any dessert topping will do. Also, you can sub vanilla beans for extract, about 2 teaspoons, but then add 2 teaspoons less of milk. If consistency is still too thick you can add more milk until you’re satisfied.

This recipe is adapted from The Baker Chick’s Blog. She has lots of super pretty pictures and recipes! I found her via Pinterest (of course).