The Ultimate Caramel Cake

I had been in search for the perfect caramel cake for the longest time. I was looking for a cake similar to a childhood caramel cake that I remember, very light and soft cake with caramel frosting that is not too sweet but yet very much a caramel. After a few attempts using different recipes, I think I finally got it.

I found the perfect recipe of the caramel cake that I had been looking for. I used Sarah Phillips' Orange Sponge Cake recipe (without the Orange this time), and replaced it with Caramel Syrup. I'm totally in love with her sponge cake recipe, the possibilities are endless as to how I could vary the flavors of the cake (think lemon, mocha, coffee...).

I started with the usual beating and folding of the eggs and flour, I added a few tablespoons of caramel syrup and baked the cake for around 45 minutes. The aroma of the caramel again filled my little kitchen, it's heaven! I took out the cake from the oven, cooled it for 10 minutes, removed it from the pan and cooled completely. As I was cooling the cake, I made the caramel frosting. I made it using a vanilla mousseline buttercream and then I beat caramel syrup on it. After I got all the syrup that I needed from the caramel, I proceeded in putting it in the oven for about an hour to make it into a thin custard.




One important note though, don't start decorating your cake when you are sleepy! Hehe. I smoothened the caramel on top, piped the nice border swirls on the edge, but totally forgot that the sides are not yet done! Big no-no. I cannot pipe properly anymore on the sides without ruining the nice swirls on top. I think I managed to still make the cake decent but it was not how I originally planned on piping it. Or did I have a plan at all? I don't remember. LOL! Don't get fooled by the pipes on the side, they're really diagonal and not tabingi. Nevertheless after the piping boo-boo, the cake was so caramelicious, just the way I like it.

Yet Another Orange Sponge Cake

I made Sarah's Orange Sponge Cake again last night because Manny has not tried it yet. I made my first orange sponge cake while he was out on a trip so he was not able to try it. I kept telling him how good the cake was and how much people at the office loved it, and kept telling him that he will surely love it because it is light, fluffy, soft and the icing is just so creamy and malinamnam.

We were out for a good 12 days and while at it, I kept thinking once in a while of what variation I would make next out of this recipe. I was thinking of making a caramel or mocha next. However, I wanted him first to be able to try the original recipe which is Orange.




So I made this cake last night while half-asleep. LOL! I was already very sleepy when I finished making the cake. I'm still very sleepy right now while blogging, and come to think of it, I'm always sleepy anyway. Hehe. I continued making the cake anyway because I had already sifted the flour and cracked and separated the eggs. I don't want to lose the freshness of the ingredients by refrigerating it and making it the next day. So I went on preparing the batter and folding ingredients, baking it in the oven and cooling it. After cooling, I also just dumped the frosting on the cake which I originally planned on piping nicely!

The final cake still looked nice nevertheless, and as expected it was so delicious! It was more delicious than I remembered it the first time I made it. Although I'm confident about the cake, I am still a little nervous at how Manny will like it having raised all of his expectations of the cake because of my weeks of talk about how good the cake was. And the verdict? He loved it and he's excited for me to try it with mangoes. It would be really wonderful! I will be making it though once I get home to the Philippines. For now, the Orange Sponge Cake had taken over our breakfast and lunch at the office. It's perfect with a latte!

Orange Sponge Cake

I promised myself that I will not bake anything until I clean up my house and with that motivation, I started cleaning up yesterday non-stop. After a few scratches and falling from the chair while cleaning the ceiling, I finished today and as my reward, I baked Priscilla's Orange Sponge Cake with Neoclassic French Buttercream. The sponge cake is Sarah's recipe passed on to her by her mom.



I have made a sponge cake once, but it's the hot milk sponge cake which is made not with the traditional way of making one. I did not attempt making a sponge cake earlier because I know it would be difficult, like the genoise. I get second thoughts of baking anything that requires beating eggs and carefully folding the flour because it is very easy to ruin the batter, and waste ingredients. However, I do want to try cakes out of my comfort zone once in a while.


I needed 5 eggs for this recipe, and when I went to the supermarket, the chatty old man who works at the dairy area was there arranging new stacks of eggs. He would often chat with me whenever I get eggs or butter. I was looking for large eggs, and he told me that he had a stack of 12 XL eggs sold the same price as the 10 large ones. I told him that I needed large only, but he insisted on me taking the XL ones because he said it's a bargain, and with a hearty laugh, he asked me what difference would it make if I cook with it? Knowing that it would make a deal of difference baking with different sized eggs, but not wanting to disappoint the nice old man, and not wanting to have a lengthy argument (Israelis love to argue by the way :P), I just took the XL eggs. Anyway, no point of arguing because when I looked at the eggs in the carton, the eggs were NOT XL although marked as XL. Hehe.

So anyway, on with baking the sponge cake, I separated the whites and the yolks, beating both separately and aftewhich, I need to fold them together with the flour. Some people have heavy hands, and they often complain that they overfold eggs. As for me, my common mistake is I normally underfold. I'm trying to improve on this folding thingy, lest all my cakes will be sinking. I also used fresh oranges for the cake which I squeezed. I can't help it so I drank some of the juice. Hehe. After folding all the eggs, flour and the juice, I baked the cake for 40 minutes and it smelled wonderful!

The sponge cake was supposed to go with an orange glaze, but I had leftover egg yolks that I wanted to use so I made the Neoclassic French Buttercream. I made the orange variation so that it would go perfectly with the orange sponge cake. Making the French Buttercream was similar, even almost the same to the Italian Buttercream, only that the French uses egg yolks while the Italian uses egg whites. I also used some orange zest and juice for the buttercream.


Once the cake is cooled, I decorated it with simple pipes of the buttercream. After a few photos, I cut the cake and the texture was very fine. This is the fluffiest cake that I've ever made. The texture was so fine and soft, and the color was perfect light yellow. I'm so happy with how the cake turned out, it's so delicious. The recipe itself was a classic, and even if it is just my first time baking a real sponge cake, it was successful.