This Southern Caramel Cake Recipe is a traditional caramel cake made from an heirloom family recipe. It’s delicious topped with homemade caramel icing!
Southern Caramel Cake is one of those desserts that is a true labor of love. So rich and decadent, it’s a cake that surely takes any special occasion to a whole new level and is by far one of my family’s favorite cakes.
We celebrated two birthdays in my family this past weekend – Mama’s and my husband’s. I asked each of them what kind of cake they would like for their birthday and both of them replied, “Caramel Cake!” Any cake that is requested by multiple people in a family the size of mine for their birthday is definitely a cake to make sure you get just right.
It’s a cake to take pride in, even though mine is a far cry from decorator-perfect. Right down to the smudges on the rim of the cake plate. You can surely tell it’s homemade, can’t you?
How to Make Southern Caramel Cake
Ingredients
Be sure to see the recipe card below for the full listing of ingredients, instructions, notes, and estimated nutritional information.
For the caramel cake, you’ll need butter, sugar, eggs, self-rising flour, buttermilk, vanilla extract, and a double recipe of my family’s Southern Caramel Icing.
Room Temperature Ingredients
Make sure your ingredients, especially butter, eggs, and buttermilk, are all at room temperature. This allows them to mix more fully into the cake batter.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Prep. Preheat oven to 350º F. Prepare three cake pans with butter and flour. Set aside.
Make the cake batter. Cream together the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix until combined after each egg. Add the flour and buttermilk, alternating between the two and beginning and ending with the flour.
Bake the cake. Divide the cake batter between the three prepared cake pans and bake until the center springs back to a light touch and the sides of the cake begin to pull away from the sides of the pan. You may enjoy reading all of my tips for how to tell when your cake is done.
Cool the layers. Remove the cake layers from the oven. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes and then turn them out onto wire racks to cool completely.
Make your caramel icing. This is when you’ll have time to make your caramel icing. I’ve previously posted the recipe for Southern Caramel Icing that I use.
Make this cake soon for someone you love, to celebrate something special, or just because. You won’t be sorry.
Southern Caramel Cake Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup (226 g) butter, room temperature
- 2 cups (396 g) sugar
- 4 large (200 g) eggs, room temperature
- 3 cups (360 g) self-rising flour
- 1 cup (227 g) buttermilk, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons (9.4 g) vanilla extract
- Southern Caramel Icing Recipe, double the recipe
Instructions
- Prep. Preheat oven to 350º F. Prepare three cake pans with butter and flour. Set aside.
- Make the cake batter. Cream together the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix until combined after each egg. Add the flour and buttermilk, alternating between the two and beginning and ending with the flour.
- Bake the cake. Divide the cake batter between the three prepared cake pans and bake until the center springs back to a light touch and the sides of the cake begin to pull away from the sides of the pan. You may enjoy reading all of my tips for how to tell when your cake is done.
- Cool the layers. Remove the cake layers from the oven. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes and then turn them out onto wire racks to cool completely.
- Make the icing. Make double the original recipe for Southern Caramel Icing to have ample icing for this three layer cake.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I use butternut vanilla, gives a rich homemade taste. One of grandmas secrets.
I would like to make this in a square or rectangular cake. Can you tell me what size it would be?
Perfect cake for family get together …
The cake is awesome but I still need to practice mastering the technique on the icing. It gets too dark when it’s beating. The flavor is there but it’s not perfect yet.
Hi – so what is the flavor of the cake? I was expecting it to be a caramel cake, but it seems more like a butter yellow cake. Is that right?
Also – can I halve the recipe & bake in 2 cake pans (shorten the time a bit because they’ll be thinner) & make a single batch of the caramel icing? It’s just a two of us, and I’d rather not have all the extra lying around 🙂
Thanks for responding!!
I made this cake today and the frosting didn’t quite turn out right, so I’m hoping you can give me some pointers. I made sure to cook it to soft-ball stage (using the cold-water test), then dumped it in my KitchenAid and whipped it until my finger made an imprint. I’m not sure if I whipped it too long or not long enough because when I tried to put it on the cake it didn’t spread at all. It was like playdoh consistency. I tried rolling it out with my rolling pin and that didn’t work either, it stuck to my wax paper and just didn’t look nice. It’s still delicious so I’m still bringing it to my church activity tomorrow, but any ideas on how to make the frosting actually spreadable so that next time I make it it won’t look so ugly? Thanks!
Hi Jackie,
It does sound like it whipped just a little bit too long. It can happen quickly. One minute you think it will never reach that stage and then the next it is past where it should have been. It can be a real pain, I know!
One thing that I’ve noticed is that newer models of stand mixers seem to be more powerful than older models. If that’s the case for you, maybe back down on the speed of your mixer a bit so that it reaches the proper stage a bit more slowly. I hope that helps!
I know your friends at your church activity will love you for bringing that to them though! xo
So I think the original problem was actually that I had cooked it too long, so I made some more frosting this morning and made sure that it was in a very soft soft-ball stage before whipping it, but I think I also whipped it for too long again because it came out very hard to spread. Do you think it would help if I cook it even less time, or do you think the problem is mostly whipping it for too long? Also, do you keep your caramel cake in the fridge after you frost it or do you leave it out in room temperature? PS Everyone at the activity did love it, and I was super excited that a generous amount of crumbs were left on the platter for me to eat!
Why don’t you try beating it by hand, like the original recipe suggested. Those kitchen aid mixers are powerful. By hand you can tell what is going on with your frosting.
Hi, we are vegetarians and do not consume eggs. Could you please help suggest substitutes for the egg in this recipe? Thanks!
Hi Sweta,
I was in the middle of making this cake and then I discovered we had no eggs, so i used a banana instead. It turned out delicious! I used the caramel buttercream that is linked in the ingredients list and with that, it becomes a banana caramel cake. I used a medium sized banana that had lots of brown spots and no green in sight; very ripe and sweet. Although it tastes slightly different from the original cake, it is still delicious and i highly recommend you try it.
Erin M xx
Can you make this cake in a 9×13 pan?
I read about a caramel cake in the novel The Help and I was curious about how to make one. Thank you
I made this cake over the weekend and it is perfect! I didn’t have any buttermilk so I used 2% milk with white vinegar and both the cake and the icing were incredible! When I mixed the ingredients for the icing, I truly thought there was no way it would become the decadent confection pictured on your site, but I walked away from it once it came to a boil and I had turned it down, and came back to a rich, caramel syrup that beat up to perfection. Thanks so much!!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it, Melissa!