Ugliest cake you'll ever LOVE!

The Headlines:

Needed a last minute cake.

Looks super ugly.

Tastes major yum!

Recipe for ugly, yummy (chocolate & caramel) cake.



So it was my parents anniversary last week and they came into town to watch my kids while my husband and I "jetted" off to the Laguna, California area. They actually arrived on their anniversary so, the night before, I figured the only proper thing to do was to bake them a cake! But I had no time.  Now, if I haven't mentioned this before -- think I'm picky -- you should meet my mom!  Oh my goodness... nothing pleases that woman. Well, not nothing but WOW - I know where I get it from!  But  one thing she loves is chocolate... goooood chocolate!  So I decided a super easy,  quick chocolate cake that tastes like you're visiting heaven for a day would be in order.  Easy.  Ha! Remember, I don't cook - so this is never an easy task.

But today... it was...

Ooooey Goooey Chocolate & Caramel Cake

It took about 15-20 minutes of actual work to make this cake happen.  Love that!

And look how pretty it is.... here.  Yea, I set this up.  I'm picky so I like things to look cool, remember? 

When it's an actual cake... there's just no beauty in it.  See below.  It kind of looks like a lump of coal to me. 

Cake 

1 cup unsalted butter

1 cup water

4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

8 large caramels cut into pieces or 16 medium pieces

Frosting

1/2 cup unsalted butter

6 tablespoons milk

4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

16 ounces (give or take) confectioners sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

you can add come caramels in here too but not necessary 

Heat oven to 375, use butter wrapper to coat a 15x10 inch baking pan.  Put butter, water, cocoa in saucepan.  Heat until boiling then remove from heat.  Add flour, sugar and salt.  Stir in sour cream, baking soda and eggs.  Stir until blended.  Pour into pan.  Place caramels into mix like shown below.  Then take spoon and cover with batter in pan already.  Bake 22-24 minutes.

When the cake is done, start on the frosting.

For the frosting,  kind of the same thing... place butter, milk and cocoa in saucepan.  This is where I also added more caramels but, like I said, that's up to you!  Heat until boiling, stirring.  Remove from heat and stir in sugar and vanilla.  Spread on cake while it's still warm. 

I know, it's not gorgeous... but that's not the point of this cake.  Use this, when you're short on time but high on taste!  To make things worse, I was going to use frosting to write an Anniversary message but it didn't work so I found random candies in my pantry.  Again, I know... it's not very pretty.  But I promise you, the taste will make up for it.  An idea:  maybe throw some ice cream your guests way because it's rich!  Almost brownie like!  

Side note, if you make this cake without the caramels... it won't be quite as gooey and more cake - like.  I prefer the gooey version! By the way, the picky mom - loved it!