Southern Caramel Cake Recipe
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
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.
Hi I have a question about the caramel icing.
Do you use the salted butter with this also?
Thanks
Hi Trish,
You can use unsalted or salted. I actually just use salted butter though.
This cake is delicious!!! My guy is from down home Mississippi and this is his all time FAVE cake. Now I love to bake and usually am really good at it but I was afraid to try it since he always talks about how well his Grandma used to make it…eek. I did a trial run for the people at work (yes, I’m that crazy) before I made one for him and they loved it! I think I overworked the icing a little bit because mine is so much darker than yours. Did I cook it too long? Either way, this cake is so yummy…thank you!!
I’m so excited, Kimberly and can’t wait to hear how he likes it, too! Your caramel may have gotten a bit browner while cooking than mine did and that would yield a darker caramel icing. Either work is perfectly fine and delicious. Congratulations and I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Wow, this is the kind of cake I grew up on! I added it to my Thanksgiving desserts round up.
Hi Robyn!
I just wanted you to know that I ran across your recipe a few days ago and I decided to make it today . It came out great ! I made a few changes though :
I added brown sugar with the white sugar for the cake part
I used butter instead of crisco for the icing … Took about an hour to get the thickness I needed.
For the icing I used brown sugar instead of white sugar and I added some dark corn syrup to it .
I took it to work today and it was gone within an hour . I actually have people trying to order them for the holidays ! Great recipe , with or without the little changes I did .
Thank you so much for posting. I cannot wait to make this cake for my husband’s birthday. This is his very favorite cake and we have been searching for the recipe. His people are from Mississippi, and somehow the recipe has been lost. Thank you again!!
I had a huge problem with the cake sticking to the pan and then falling apart! tastes great though!
Oh no! You’ll want to be sure that your cake pans are well-prepared with baking spray or a good coating of butter or shortening and then lightly coated with flour to prevent any sticking. The cake is very tender, so I’m sure once it stuck it made it break apart more easily.
Made this for my mother-in-law’s birthday. She is a proper Southern woman and told me that she’s had quite a bit of caramel cake in her time but this was hands down the best. It was wonderful!
You just made my entire week! What a compliment!!! Thank you and give her a big hug from me!
YUMMY I made this today with my 92 year old mother, We substituted a box cake and used the buttermilk instead of water in mix. Turned out great Then we Made the Frosting OMG it is to Die For!!!
Thank You this great recipe was fun to make, took a long time for frosting but was worth every minute with mom, a spending time with family making a delicious desert and enjoying it was great will be on my favorite cake list from now on… / **HI5**
Just made this today and it’s a KEEPER! Thank you for an
amazing recipe. I used all (salted) butter instead of the Crisco in the
frosting and added another teaspoon of salt and vanilla- best icing EVER!!
Yay, Aimee!!! I’m so glad you enjoyed it. Great tip on the icing! So glad that worked for you and you loved it! I’m making them this recipe later this week as cupcakes and I just might have to try the icing your way! 🙂
I made this over the weekend, but made cupcakes instead. I cooked them for 27 mins and it yielded 27 of them.
This was by far the best cake recipe and icing I have ever made. The cake recipe will be what I use when I want a vanilla cake for any icing. Thank you for sharing. Everyone should have such a great staple in their recipe book.