Have you ever made a Caramel Cake with Caramel Icing recipe? It’s a classic Southern treat! But instead of a layer cake, I made it into a thin sheet cake. Less time baking, more time eating, I say! It’s really easy to put together. Originally posted August 1, 2018.
The other day I walked into the kitchen to find my 1-year-old baby Valentine standing on a chair by the kitchen counter, eating an entire stick of BUTTER. Such are the risks of softening butter on the counter in this house.
I snapped this picture literally minutes after I had finished giving her a bath to clean up her adventures in the toilet. She rewarded me with butter hair. These kids! It’s a good thing she’s so cute.
Caramel Cake…sheet cake?
I’ve been a little obsessed with sheet cake lately. I posted the recipe for The Only Texas Sheet Cake You’ll Ever Need just a few weeks ago, after testing it 3 times. And then I moved straight into the caramel version. (Side note, do you pronounce it car-mel, or care-uh-mel? I grew up saying car-mel, but in the past few years for some reason switched to care-uh-mel, and now I feel like a pretentious food snob every time I say it. The truth comes out!!)
Southern Caramel Cake wannabe
What I really wanted was Caramel Cake, the Southern kind with layers, but without all the fuss of actual, well, layers. The cake part of a traditional Southern Caramel Cake is not actually caramel-flavored; it’s a yellow or white cake that’s there to soak up all the caramel icing goodness. The cake part of today’s recipe, though, actually tastes caramel-y because we’re using 2 cups of brown sugar. And we’re throwing it into a sheet pan to bake so that it’s done in 20 minutes!
Caramel Cake Ingredients
Here is everything you need. So easy!
- Salted butter
- Brown sugar
- Vanilla
- Flour
- Evaporated milk
- Salt
- Baking soda
- Sour cream
- Large eggs
How To Make Caramel Cake
This cake recipe is soooo simple. Kind of the opposite of real Caramel Cake, ha. Here’s a basic overview and I’ll give you some more details and photos below!
- Melt butter and water in a pot, add a heck ton of brown sugar, then vanilla.
- Add flour, salt, and baking soda.
- Whisk together the eggs and sour cream separately then add to the batter.
- Bake 20 minutes! That’s it!
What size pan should I use to bake caramel sheet cake?
I like this cake best in an 18×13 inch half sheet pan (thinner cake means a higher frosting ratio!) but you’ve got options for sheet cake. Be sure to adjust the bake time according to the pan size you select. Cooking times will always vary because everyone’s oven is different.
| Pan Size | Baking Time |
| 9×13 inch (cake pan) | 23-25 minutes |
| 15×10 inch (jelly roll) | 20-22 minutes |
| 18×13 inch (half sheet) | 17-20 minutes |
How To Make Caramel Frosting
And now for the icing. Legit, from scratch, pour-straight-up-dry-sugar-into-a-pan caramel icing takes like an hour to make, stirring a pot the whole time. Noooo thank you. I’m all about the brown sugar shortcuts. Bless you, brown sugar. Here’s a quick overview!
- Boil together butter, brown sugar, and evaporated milk.
- Add vanilla
- Place the pan of frosting in an ice bath for a few minutes to help it thicken.
- Spread over the cake and devour! Make sure you don’t eat it all with a spoon first!!
(This is what your caramel should look like when it’s boiling. It will thicken in just a few minutes.)
Ice bath time. You can see how beautifully thick it is now.
You still get that deep caramel flavor by boiling it on the stove with some butter and evaporated milk, and it only takes a few minutes. Much easier than the dry sugar method.
After boiling, you cool for several minutes in an ice bath to thicken it up. I LOVE this method for cooked frosting, and use it in several recipes, including Nana’s Famous Fudge Brownies and this Peach Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting. It makes the frosting thicken up so nice and smooth. I eat it by the spoonful! (It’s much better than fistfuls of butter.)
Is there a difference between icing and frosting?
Frosting is thick enough to be spreadable. It stays soft on the edges. Imagine the frosting on your favorite Chocolate Cake. Swirly soft for days.
Icing is thin enough to be drizzled on top of a cake, and usually hardens on the edges (like today’s caramel frosting!) It will look crackly when you cut into it, like the icing on this Glazed Lemon Bread. Today’s caramel frosting is kind of like a frosting-icing hybrid.
How To Store Caramel Cake
Store this cake covered on the counter! If you leave it in the pan you baked it in and don’t have a lid for that pan, it’s going to dry out pretty fast, even if you cover with plastic wrap. I like to transfer it to a large rectangular food storage container. Keep it only in one layer if you need the frosting to stay nice for presentation. It also freezes beautifully, if well sealed.
How Long Does Carmel Cake Last?
First you should ask yourself, am I REALLY going to have any leftovers? And then you should probably pop the cake in the freezer, if by some trick of fate the cake has already been out a few days. Frozen cake is good for up to 3 months.
Look at this you guys. Can you see how this literally looks like I’m slicing up a square of soft caramel? It really is caramel, with the added bonus of cake underneath it! It’s so incredibly rich, and so good. A little bit goes a long way. (For some people who are not me.) This cake feeds a crowd and would be a great dessert to bring for game day!
More sheet cakes that you will die and go to heaven for!
- The Only Texas Sheet Cake You Will Ever Need << seriously guys.
- Peach Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting << looove this for summer!
- Butterscotch Pumpkin Cake << this is one of my favorites. The texture on this cake is just indescribable. It’s like fudge.
- White Texas Sheet Cake << the blonde version.
- Almond Sheet Cake << arguably my favorite sheet cake??
- Lemon Sheet Cake << I told, you I’ve become obsessed.
- Zucchini Pineapple Sheet Cake from What’s for Dinner
- Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll Sheet Cake from Oh Sweet Basil
- Samoas Texas Sheet Cake from A Spicy Perspective
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Caramel Cake with Caramel Icing
Ingredients
For the cake
- 1 cup salted butter, (2 sticks)
- 1 cup water
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 cups flour, spooned and leveled
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 2 large eggs
For the icing
- 3/4 cup salted butter, (1 and 1/2 sticks)
- 3 & 1/2 cups brown sugar
- 1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup evaporated milk OR heavy cream
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 & 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 18×13 inch half sheet pan* with parchment paper, or just spray it well with nonstick spray (or grease with butter).
- In a medium saucepan, melt 1 cup butter and 1 cup water over medium high heat. Add 2 cups brown sugar and stir occasionally until it comes to a rolling boil (that means bubbles all the way across the top, not just the edges.)Â Remove from heat once it has come to a full boil.Â
- Let it cool for a couple minutes, then add 2 teaspoons vanilla.
- Add 2 cups flour to the pot, but don’t mix yet. Add the salt and baking soda on top of the flour and use a small spoon to stir it into the flour (You don’t want to accidentally get a chunk of salt or soda in your cake, ew).
- Use a whisk to stir the flour mixture in. Try to get all the lumps out.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs and sour cream. Add this to the cake batter and stir until incorporated.Â
- Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan and spread to the edges.
- Bake at 350 for about 17-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with no batter on it. The edges of the cake will start to pull away from the side of the pan.
- Let the cake cool for about 20 minutes before frosting.
- Make the caramel icing: In a clean saucepan, melt 3/4 cup butter, 3 and 1/2 cups brown sugar, 1/2 cup + 1/3 cup evaporated milk (or heavy cream), and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Bring it to a boil over medium heat. Once it is at a rolling boil, stir constantly, watching for the consistency to thicken – it should coat the back of a spoon. As soon as it does, remove from heat (this may take as little as 3 minutes and as many as 10). Add 1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla and stir.Â
- Fill a large bowl with ice water. Place the entire pan of frosting into the ice bath, making sure you don't get any water in the caramel. Stir constantly for 3-5 minutes, making sure to be scraping the edges of the pan. See photos. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't harden up without you noticing! (Don't walk away. You can read in the comments about a bunch of people who waited too long and their caramel got too hard. Sometimes it takes 3 minutes, sometimes more.)
- While it is still pour-able, pour the icing over the slightly cooled cake and spread to the edges.
- Let the icing set for a few minutes before serving warm. This is really good with vanilla ice cream! It’s so rich, you can cut it into pretty small pieces. (I mean. I don’t. But I have a major sweet tooth.)
EVERYTHING you make looks dangerously delicious, but this cake, gosh, I’m making it tonight!
Is the brown sugar measured packed?
Hi Christina! Yes, every time you measure brown sugar you should pack it. :)
I made this last night for a work potluck today and it is fantastic! totally worth the effort. I had to make a couple tweaks because I didn’t have any sour cream in the house so I used vanilla yogurt instead. Also I didn’t have any ice so I just put the frosting in the fridge for 10 minutes. Flavor was spot on and it was really moist. Definitely going into my permanent recipe collection.
OMG, another fabulous cake. I made it gluten free and it is fantastic. I took half of a sheet-cake to a pot luck today. The small squares went in a heartbeat with everyone OH-ing and AH-ing about the caramel flavor, then were flabbergasted that it was GF. Amazing, thank you!
Ooh so happy to know this works with a gluten free blend! So glad the pot luckers were happy. That’s always the best! Thanks so much for reviewing Linda!
I’m excited to make this Carmel cake for my grandsons birthday, your recipe says brown sugar, do you use light or dark brown sugar? Thanks
Hi Jamie! I used dark brown sugar but either one will work fine!
Lovely images! I baked the cake also thin like you, and the cake is so delicious. However, I really struggled with the caramel. My caramel started burning before it even boiled. Suppose I can look for you tube videos on how to do it, but do you have any hints for me? It browned really quickly, so I could not boil it for more than a few minutes before the burnt smell started to come through. It also tasted grainy not creamy. I still ate it though, love the moist cake! :)
Hi Marliz! I’m not sure what happened! That’s so frustrating. Do you mean that the butter browned really quickly? If you cook your butter by itself to long, eventually it will brown, which is not what you want for caramel making. Try adding all the frosting ingredients to the pot at once (except the vanilla) before you even turn on the burner, just in case. Hope this helps!
This cake was easy and very good. It was very sweet and rich so a small piece was very satisfying. It also freezes well as I like to keep desserts in the freezer and pull them out at a later date.
Yes, a little bit of this cake goes a long way! I’m so glad you liked it, thanks for commenting Marilyn!
Best Caramel Icing Ever.
Thanks for the recipe.
Thank you Shannon!!
I love Carmel cake
What type flour? SR, plain, all purpose?
Hi Anne! All purpose flour :) Enjoy!
I thought this cake turned out very well. I doubled the recipe and served it in two 13″X 9″ cake pans. Many thought it very delicious! I think my sister, who came to visit me because she happened to be in town for some Car Races was surprised I baked her a cake for her soon to be birthday. My sis-in-law used the other cake for her sister who was visiting because her niece, her sister’s baby of the family got married that weekend. I served the cake at a family reunion since many relatives were in town. The sister from Ohio whose 70th birthday we celebrated said, “You are the best baker in the family!”
Woohoo, best baker award goes to Kathy! You deserve it :) I’m so glad you all liked the cake, it’s hard to go wrong with something this caramel-y! Thanks so much for coming back to leave a comment. I love hearing from you!
I made the Carmel cake. Don’t know what happened I reread the directions and I had done just as it said but my icing hardened after spread on the cake. I mean so hard I had to break it. Any idea what i may have done. Cake part was delicious tho.  Icing was more like candyÂ
Ah! I’m so sorry to hear that Carla! Caramel is a finicky beast. It sounds like you cooked it too long on the stove. You are watching for it to thicken slightly and coat the back of a spoon. Also, is it possible that you left it in the ice bath too long? I’m sorry the recipe didn’t work out for you!
Also, How do you think they would be for cupcakes? Baking time?
Hey Mary! You know, I haven’t ever baked a sheet cake as cupcakes, but I imagine that it would work just fine. I would start with baking for about 18 minutes and then check from there, but you will have to keep an eye on it! You might have issues with the centers falling in after you take them out of the oven, so either add a few extra tablespoons of flour, or at least make sure you don’t over beat the batter.
Another winner! Â This cake was easy to make, and tastes deee-lish! Â The only thing I will do differently next time is not leave the frosting sitting the full 10 minutes in the ice bath. Â It chilled the frosting too fast, and made it really hard to spread on the cake. Â Although this was probably my fault, since I re-read the directions, and it said “while frosting is still pourable, pour over cake.” Â a-HAH! Â I missed that the first time around, lol. Â
Anyway, I highly recommend this cake, I will be making it again and again!!!
Yay I’m so glad you liked the cake Lorinda! Good tip with the frosting, I will amend the recipe to make it more clear. Thanks so much for commenting! Helps me out so much, and I love hearing from you!
Looks yummy!!! Wondering what your thoughts or suggestion would be of freezing this cake. Would you bake, freeze, thaw cake then make icing? I’m thinking this is the way. Or would you suggest baking, icing then freezing?Â
My parents have their 60th wedding anniversary in October. I want to make the desserts. And, this sounded like a perfect fall dessert.
TIA
Hey Mary! Great question! I haven’t tried freezing this cake yet, but in general, you can freeze a completed cake. Bake the cake, frost it, let it cool, wrap it up as best you can, and freeze for up to a week. It would also work just fine to freeze only the cake and frost the defrosted cake. I just recently froze a few completed piece of this Brown Sugar Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting, and it was still delicious when I pulled it out a couple weeks later!
Are you planning on freezing it and then serving it at the anniversary? If so, then I would freeze the cake only and frost before serving, just for presentation alone.