My name is Pamela and I am a recovering perfectionist. I have realized for a very long time that it was an unachievable goal, but nevertheless, I found myself disappointed at my best attempts. Well, there are certain activities that have a way of humbling me, like making birthday cakes, and today happens to be my husband’s birthday!!
When asked what kind of cake he would like for me to make, he didn’t respond with the usual “Carrot Cake.” Nope, he found one of the most decadent cakes he could find on the internet, and boy, is it a doozy! It’s a recipe on the Brown Eyed Baker blog called the Snickers Cake. Yes, it looks and sounds amazing. I was practically drooling, looking at the pictures, and of course, I couldn’t say “no” to him.
So I grabbed all of the ingredients and set out to make this cake from scratch. First, I made the actual cakes, and I couldn’t tell you how pleased I was that all three of them came out of the cake pans without a problem! For some reason, birthday cakes fall out in pieces, or at least, that has been my experience.
Next, I decided I’d go ahead and make the Salted Caramel Sauce that is also on her blog. I even went into town this morning specifically to purchase a new candy thermometer. I read the recipe and reread the recipe, and had such high hopes. She does warn that there is a fine line between perfect caramel and burnt, horrible caramel, and she’s right. There is a mighty fine line and I crossed it big time! It was completely ruined and I filled the kitchen up with such terrible smoke that we had to open the door. Sigh. I hoped it wasn’t an indication of how the rest of the cake was going to go. I had just enough to try once more on the sauce, and I really didn’t want to go back to the store. I was already feeling defeated.
While I took more butter and the last of the cream out to bring to room temperature, I made the nougat filling. Thankfully, it turned out amazing and so, so good. I was beyond thrilled, and my daughter and I thought of all of the possibilities! Things were starting to look up.
Finally, it was time to try my hand at the caramel sauce again. This time I didn’t bother to use the thermometer. I never could quite get all of the lumps of sugar to dissolve, and I’m pretty sure the majority of the salt ended up on those lumps. Then my husband showed me that we still had an open can of condensed milk ‘caramel’. If worse came to worse, I would simply incorporate it into mine, but to my delight, after straining out the lumps it came out perfect. Okay, not perfect, but tremendously good.
The last two steps involved making the caramel buttercream frosting and the ganache. Doesn’t that just sound heavenly? I’m not quite sure I reached the desired consistency for the frosting, but that didn’t stop me from slopping it on the cake. And last came the ganache. Unfortunately, the recipe that I was going to use called for cream, but I used that up, so I found another one that used butter and milk instead. I let it sit and cool for a bit, but obviously, not long enough. It drizzled right off the top and onto the plate below. Oh well.
It’s not perfect, but it’s probably one of the best I’ve made yet, and it doesn’t look too bad either.
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