Caramel Apple Cake

Today we're making a fun and unique Halloween cake - a caramel apple cake that looks like actual caramel apples! Pick your favorite topping and cut yourself a slice!

Course: dessert

Cuisine: american

Keyword: Cake

Ingredients

Cake batter:

1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
2 cups brown sugar
3 tsp vanilla extract
6 large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 ½ cups sour cream

Buttercream:

2 cups unsalted butter room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 drops graham cracker flavor optional
4 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar
¼ cup dulce de leche
green brown and orange food coloring
6 candy apple skewers
¼ cup each of assorted candy chopped into pieces if necessary

Instructions

Bake the cake:

Beat the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer until pale and smooth. Add the vanilla extract and eggs one at a time, mixing with each addition.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add this to the batter in 2 additions, alternating with the sour cream.
Pour the batter into a greased and floured bundt cake pan and bake at 350F for 45-60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool completely.

Make the buttercream:

Beat the butter with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and graham cracker flavor (optional) and mix well. Add the confectioner’s sugar one cup at a time, beating with each addition.

Assembly:

Use a serrated knife to carve the bundt cake into 6 connected spheres. Cut little craters into the top of each sphere to create the dip where the apples’ stems would be.
Coat the entire cake in a thin layer of buttercream. Place the cake in the fridge and chill for 20 minutes.
Divide the remaining buttercream in half. Dye one half green. Set the other half aside.
Spread the green buttercream onto the top halves of the apples. Be sure to smooth the buttercream as best as you can and coat the inside of the craters as well.
Add the dulce de leche to the remaining white buttercream. If you would like the buttercream to be darker, add a couple drops of brown and 1 drop of orange food coloring – this will make it look like caramel!
Spread the caramel buttercream onto the bottom halves of the apples. Spread the buttercream up to meet the green buttercream to make sure no cake is showing.
Place the cake in the fridge for 20-30 minutes, for the buttercream to stiffen.
Working with one ‘apple’ at a time, spread another layer of caramel buttercream onto the caramel portion. Because the cake has been chilled, you’ll be able to apply the caramel buttercream on top of the green buttercream, if necessary, without the green buttercream smudging. This will create a more natural look and allow you to spread the caramel frosting as high onto the ‘apples’ as you’d like.
Once the second layer of caramel buttercream has been spread onto an apple, stick on the candy toppings. The second, fluffy layer of buttercream will allow the candies to stick firmly, while the cool base of the cake will encourage the buttercream to slightly stiffen and further secure the candies. This way, you won’t have candies falling off the apples!
Repeat with the remaining apples, covering them generously with buttercream and candy.
Stick the candy apple skewers into each apple and serve!