Sugary. Buttery. Decadent.

The perfect caramel cake is many things. But ask any professional Southern baker to describe it and they will first tell you the one thing it is not: just a dessert.

When it’s done right, caramel cake is an experience. It is a labor of love. Or my personal favorite take, caramel cake is trouble, in the wise words of Anne Byrn, baker and author of Baking in the American South, alluding to the skill it requires to master.

With the holiday season upon us, here’s a look at the sweet history of this Southern dessert that uncovers what makes caramel cake so iconic, plus how bakers can achieve perfection.

A look between the cake layers

First things first: If you’re not familiar with caramel cake, forget everything you know about caramel. Unlike the hard candies you unwrapped as a kid, the star here is caramel in frosting form. Think of icing that is smooth, soft and melt-in-your-mouth sweet.

The nationally acclaimed seven-layer caramel cake from Caroline’s Cakes | Courtesy Caroline’s Cakes

The ingredients for caramel frosting are as basic as it gets — milk, sugar and butter. However, caramelizing sugar into icing is notoriously difficult, explained owner of Spartanburg’s Caroline’s Cakes Richard Reutter, son of Caroline Ragsdale Reutter, who founded the company with her seven-layer caramel cake recipe that is now nationally acclaimed.

“Mom always told me that being able to make a caramel cake was like a badge of honor,” Reutter said. “Everyone knows the process of getting the caramel right is so demanding.”

Traditional caramel frosting requires constant stirring to prevent the sugar from burning. This means once you get started, there’s no stepping away from the stove allowed, a lesson Reutter learned the hard way alongside his mother growing up.

“As an impatient kid, I ruined a number of batches,” Reutter said with a laugh, recalling making caramel cakes in his mother’s kitchen as a teen. “I remember stirring and stirring and stirring into oblivion. But it was so apparent when Mom got our caramel perfect. You could feel it.”

That “feel” is all about consistency. Caramel frosting must be light enough to flow while pouring it over a multi-layer cake yet still thick enough to set in place. The challenge of striking this balance is why caramel cake is so revered (and feared) by southern bakers.

From Southern staple to national treasure

Caramel cake, categorized as a classic layer cake, is as old as baking powder and cake flour, which both became available at the end of the 19th century, according to Byrn.

“Baking powder, which made cakes light, popularized layer cakes,” Byrn said. “As did cake flour, which was lighter and whiter than other flours of its time.” Swan’s Down Cake Flour hit shelves in 1894 marking a major turning point in America’s baking history.

Caramel frosting, on the other hand, is about 100 years older, dating back to when caramelizing sugar to make candy became popular in New Orleans. Eventually, the practice spread into the Mississippi Delta, which is why many people associate caramel cake with this area today. In fact, Mississippi is still the only state where you’ll find caramel cake sold at gas stations.

In the Carolinas, however, home cooks are credited for popularizing caramel cake throughout their communities, none more so than Reutter’s mother Caroline, who is remembered as the queen of caramel cake in South Carolina since her passing in 2017.

“My mom served our first caramel cake at my christening in 1982,” Reutter said. “Then word of mouth took over.” Soon, Caroline was making eight caramel cakes a day in their home kitchen for customers to pick up from her porch in Lake City.

But everything changed in October 2000 when Caroline received an order from Florida for 2,000 caramel cakes. “As a strong Southern female entrepreneur, Mom said yes without hesitation,” Reutter said. “That’s when Caroline’s Cakes was officially born.”

Today, Caroline’s Cakes ships anywhere in the country in one to two days, and caramel cake continues to be the driving force behind the business.

“It’s our top seller, far and away,” Reutter said. “Caramel cake started our business, and it continues to fuel our growth.

The perfect caramel cake

If you ask Reutter, the secret to the perfect caramel cake is not to mess with tradition.
“The recipe that we use is exactly the same as what Mom made growing up and made in the home kitchen when the business started,” Reutter said. “We just use larger kettles.”

Along with taste, texture is also an important element for those who aim for frosting perfection, according to Ted Lee of the Lee Brothers, a Charleston-bred food writer and cookbook author.

Matt Lee and Ted Lee of the Lee Brothers, a Charleston-bred food writers and cookbook authors | Photo by Libby Williams

“If you talk to real old-school Southerners and professional bakers, the texture of the icing and the way it melts in your mouth — smooth-melting and not too gritty — is another aspect you have to get right,” Lee said. To that end, some bakers skip the difficulty of caramelizing sugar and melt Kraft baking caramels to guarantee a fine icing.

But Lee prefers the tastes and textures that can only be achieved the old-fashioned way, even if you overdo the temperature a bit. “The icing comes out tasting smokier, almost like a burnt marshmallow-skin, and very gritty in texture,” Lee said. “I’m sure some bakers would say those are faults, but for us, that’s all part of the appeal!”

At the end of the day, the perfect caramel cake will be a result of focus — and the right weather forecast, according to Byrn.

“If you follow each step of the recipe carefully, and make this cake on a clear day when it’s not raining or too humid, you will have success,” Byrn said. “But it’s trouble, caramel cake, and that’s another reason people find this cake so special.

Matt and Ted Lee’s caramel cake recipe

When this writer set out on my first caramel cake baking adventure, I was hopefully optimistic due to rave reviews for this recipe featured in The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen. I heeded Byrn’s advice and followed it to a tee. The result? A perfect caramel cake.

TIP: Use a stand mixer when cooling your frosting. Getting to the right temperature took close to 30 minutes of constant stirring which would have been a lot of mixing by hand!

Prep time: 2 hours | Cook time: 1 hour | Yield: 12 servings

For the cake

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup whole milk

For the icing

1 1/2 cups whole milk
4 cups sugar
10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) butter
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
hot water

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two round 9 x 2-inch cake pans. Pour about a tablespoon of flour into each of the pans and roll it around, tapping as you go, until the sides and bottom are covered completely with a thin layer of flour. Tip the pans and tap out excess flour.

In a large mixing bowl, thoroughly mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda with a whisk.

In a separate large bowl, beat the butter with an electric mixer until creamy, about 30 seconds. Add the sugar in 1/2-cup measures, beating about 15 seconds after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary, until the mixture has lightened in color and become fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs and egg yolks, one at a time, and the vanilla, beating for 15 seconds after each addition.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in thirds, alternating with additions of the milk. To avoid overmixing the batter, mix gently with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula after each addition, until the ingredient is just incorporated. Beat until all the ingredients have been incorporated, and then just a few strokes beyond. Divide the batter between the cake pans and spread the tops evenly.

Bake until a cake tester or toothpick emerges clean, about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the cakes cool in their pans on a rack for 10 minutes, then slide a thin paring knife around the edge of the pans and invert the cakes. Turn each cake again so its rounded top is facing up and cool the cakes completely on the rack.

Pour the milk and 3 cups of the sugar into a large, deep, heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat, mixing with a whisk. Add the butter and the salt, whisking occasionally until the butter melts. When the mixture just simmers, cut the heat, but keep over the warm burner.

Pour the remaining 1 cup sugar into a saucepan. Cook the sugar over medium-high heat until it becomes a syrup, stirring every so often with a wooden spoon as it begins to brown, until the sugar syrup is evenly amber colored, 5 to 8 minutes. Pour the syrup into the warm milk mixture, being very careful, as the caramel will bubble and sputter when it hits the hot milk. Turn the heat beneath the pot to high and, whisking gently until all the syrup has completely dissolved into the roiling milk mixture, continue to cook to the soft-ball stage, about 238°F; this may take 8 to 12 minutes.

Cut the heat beneath the caramel and gently whisk in the vanilla and the baking soda. Dip a spoon into the caramel, and let it cool to taste it. Season the caramel to taste with salt, and pour it into the bowl of a standing mixer (or use an electric hand-mixer and a large bowl). Beat on low speed as it cools, 15 to 20 minutes depending on the temperature of your kitchen, until the icing is creamy and thick (between 100°F and 105°F). Remove the bowl from the mixer stand and let cool 5 to 10 minutes more, until the icing is between 95°F and 98°F — it should fall off your spatula in a ribbon that remains discernible on the surface of the icing for 10 seconds.

Set the first cake layer on a rack set over a sheet plan lined with waxed paper. Have an electric hand-mixer and the hot water nearby to blend a teaspoon or two into the icing if it becomes too thick to spread. Pour enough of the icing over the cake to cover the top in a layer about 1/4-inch thick (if it drips over the edge in places, that’s fine; this is an early test of whether it’s going to set in place or not). Top the first cake with the second cake layer and pour the rest of the icing in stages over the top of the cake, letting it run down the sides and using an icing spatula to guide the icing around the cake as it drips, until the entire cake is covered, for a traditional, classic look. (If you prefer the dramatic look of cake layers peeking out from behind a curtain of icing drips, by all means choose that route!) If you need to reuse any icing that overflows into the pan, simply move the cake on its rack temporarily, scrape up the icing from the waxed paper with a spatula and return it to the bowl, replace the rack over the pan and continue to ice the cake.

Once the icing has set, using two spatulas carefully transfer the cake from the rack to a cake stand and let stand at room temperature beneath a cake dome until ready to serve. Only refrigerate if you plan to store the cake for more than 2 days.