Chocolate Caramel Dream Cake
I made this cake over the weekend and it was so good that I wanted to share it with all of you. I got the recipe from my mom, but I’m not sure where she got it from.
Ingredients
1 box of chocolate cake mix (or you can make it from scratch!)
1 container of whipped topping
1 jar of caramel topping
4 Heath bars
Directions
1. Bake the chocolate cake as directed on the box or recipe. I used Betty Crocker’s dark chocolate cake.
2. Let the cake cool for a couple of hours.
3. Poke holes into the cake (I used a meat thermometer, mom uses a knitting needle). I made a round layer cake so I had to slice off the tops to make them flat. This exposed the natural air pockets in the cake so I barely had to make any holes.
4. Pour caramel over the cake letting it drip into the holes. (I smoothed a little extra over the top of the bottom layer to help the top layer of the cake stick and then poured the caramel into the holes of the top layer.)
5. Refrigerate the cake for a couple hours or overnight. This thickens the caramel back up so it stays in the holes rather than soaking completely into the cake.
6. Double bag the Heath Bars into sandwich bags that zip shut and smash them with a hammer until they are broken into crumbs. (My mom uses Score candy bars, but I’ve never seen them in CA. Any chocolate toffee candy bar will work fine.)
7. Frost the cake with whipped topping (I used Safeway brand whipped topping that is both soy and lactose free). If your house is warm, you will want to do this as quickly as possible before the whipped topping starts to melt.
8. Sprinkle the crushed up Heath bars over the top of the cake and then finish it off by drizzling a little caramel over the that.
We were taking the cake to a friend’s house so I covered it with plastic wrap and placed it in the freezer until we left so it wouldn’t melt on the way. If you do this, stick a couple of toothpick into the top of the cake before putting the plastic wrap on so it doesn’t stick to the caramel.
This has about a kazillion calories and at least a bazillion grams of sugar so I probably won’t make this cake often, but it tastes so good that it was worth every trip to the gym it’s going to take to work it off!
Homemade Coffee Creamer
This weekend we ran out of coffee creamer. *gasp!* I love coffee so it’s a bit of a tragedy for me. We’ve been to the store twice since then. This is a little embarrassing, but both times we went without our list and both times we forgot the coffee creamer. 😦
I’ll still drink coffee when I don’t have creamer but it’s just not as fun, so I thought I’d do some experimenting. I was really excited to find a Pumpkin Spice Latte recipe in Econobuster’s newsletter this week! I was especially excited about this since I’m not able to try the one at Starbucks you all brag so much about, lol. 🙂 If you want to try it too, you can get the recipe HERE. It was REALLY good and I think I’ll make it again tomorrow! I of course used non-fat Lactaid milk and Safeway brand whipped topping to make it lactose and soy free.
I tried a few more experiments that worked out pretty well too! I don’t have exact measurements because I just started adding things until it tasted good but if you’re feeling brave and want to give it a whirl, here are the other two things I tried:
Caramel vanilla flavored coffee- Milk ( I have no idea how much- I just poured it in until the coffee was the right color) about a half a cap of vanilla extract, a smidge of sugar, and a spoonful of caramel (the kind you put on ice cream). And then I topped it with a spoonful, ok, maybe two spoonfuls of whipped topping. It probably gave me 3 cavities but it was yummy. 🙂
Vanilla cinnamon flavored coffee- Milk (same thing, I just poured until it was the same color the creamer would have made it), around a 1/2 cap of vanilla extract, and 1-2 pinches of cinnamon. Also very good but the Caramel Vanilla wins as my favorite 🙂
If you prefer syrups to creamer, here are some actual recipes for coffee syrups using similar flavors.
Cheers!
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