Southern Caramel Icing
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Yesterday I shared with you about my Mama’s Chocolate Marble Squares. Well, I had lots of emails and requests for the recipe for the caramel icing to go along with it.
Have I ever told you that you are definitely my kind of people?
You most certainly are! There is nothing like fresh, homemade caramel icing to make the world go ’round.
Cause I really and truly think that it does.
Good caramel icing is an act of love. You truly put your heart and soul into making good southern caramel icing.
My Grandmother Verdie would stand at her stove for what seemed like hours swirling her pan to get the perfect “color” on her sugar. Her hands wrought with arthritis, she held the cast iron dutch oven as tightly as possible as she kept the rhythm of the caramel in her heavy pan. She never used a mixer to make her caramel icing, I always was amazed that she didn’t. The time it had taken her to swirl her pan earlier seemed like seconds compared to watching her beat the icing by hand.
When I married, I learned that my mother-in-law also had a special recipe for a cake topped with southern caramel icing. She’d learned to make it from an aunt of my father-in-law’s when she married into the family. She’d talk about how Aunt T would beat her icing by hand so that it would be just right. While her recipe was slightly different, Aunt T’s and my Grandmother’s method were still the same.
When Little Buddy turned one, I decided it was high time that I made a caramel cake myself. We were living with my husband’s parents as we were building our house at the time. We’d invited all of our family to a dinner to celebrate the big day. I’d worked for weeks planning the menu, creating the perfect invitations, finding just the right color of light blue placemats to match a speck of blue in my mother-in-law’s rug, and thinking about this cake.
It had to be perfect.
The icing had to taste just like the caramel icing from when I was a little girl carefully watching my Grandmother.
I set out to make the icing all by myself. I was determined not to call Grandmother Verdie to help me. The arthritis had even further ravaged her hands by now, but I knew she wouldn’t let that stop her from trying to make it for me.
After three attempts, I finally had a caramel icing I could spread on Little Buddy’s birthday cake. I felt like I had accomplished the world. I’d repeated the dance I’d watched so many times before, swirl and stir, swirl and stir, swirl and stir until I finally found just the right rhythm.
Here’s how I make it.
Southern Caramel Icing
Ingredients
- 2 cups (396 g) sugar
- 1 cup (227 g) buttermilk
- 1/2 cup (92 g) Crisco
- 1/2 cup (113 g) butter
- 1 teaspoon (6 g) baking soda
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients in a 3-4 quart cast iron dutch oven and place over medium heat.
- Swirl pan to keep ingredients moving in the pan.
- Cook to softball stage 235º – 245º on a candy thermometer or when tested in a cup of cold water.
- Remove from heat and beat with a wooden spoon until creamy and ready to spread. If using mixer, once your icing has reached the softball stage, whip the icing until it holds to the whisk when you stop the mixer.
- This is a perfect icing for Southern Caramel Cake
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as my family does.
Enjoy!
Robyn xo
Do you know if this icing keeps in the fridge? I need to be ready for a birthday the day we return from vacation, and it would be so awesome if this were already made! Thanks!
Hi Audrey,
This icing needs to be made and then immediately applied to a cake. It isn’t like a buttercream that can be made ahead and stored in the refrigerator or even the freezer before use. I wish it could! It sure would make life easier!!! xo
Sweet story!
Do you really have to use crisco? I will if it’s really nessesary but can you use all butter?
This recipe is NOT for the novice or the faint in heart. However, if you succeed than you will be graciously rewarded with an awesome cake that is a crowd pleaser. However, I learned / did to get this awesome cake (wish I could post a picture):
Tip 1. Swirling is NOT the same as stirring and will cause your fluid in the pot to get airy and , if left on the heat, will cause the substance to boil out. So don’t stand over the pot stirring. Swirling just requires a slight / gentle circular motion of the pot to make the fluid move around in the pot. So grab the pot by the handles and gentle / slightly swirl it so the fluid keeps moving.
Tips 2. If you stir and the fluid threatens to swell up out the pot, move the whole pot off of the heat so that you don’t make a huge mess. as the fluid cools slightly it will go back down. once it goes back down stop stirring it, swirl it.
Tip 3. I am a slow icing person and coupling that with an icing that needs to be warm to spread it and a very moist cake was initialing making for a disaster when icing the sides. I ended up taking a piece of plastic wrap, spraying lightly it with cooking spray (I had coconut oil cooking spray) and using my hand to mold the icing onto the sides of the cake and smoothed out the finish. This allows for the icing to stick to the cake more than the knife and allowed me to mold a smooth finish on the cake before the icing completely cooled.
Good luck ladies with your journey to cake lovers heaven.
Hi, do you use Crisco Shortening or Crisco Oil? Your cake look scrumptious! I am making it Friday for dinner with family and friends. Thanks!
Shortening
Robyn I was wondering why you aren’t answering any of the “POST” about the Icing, It seems like everyone is having Problems with the Icing not thickening up or turn in Caramel at the Soft Ball Stage…Ingredients are to expensive to be WASTING…HELP! Tell us what we are doing WRONG. LOVE THE CAKE…MOIST TENDER CAKE…HELP PLEASE….WAITING TO HEAR FROM YOU…THANKS.
Hey Margaret,
I think she is not replying because many of the questions have been answered at least twice in previous posts. The comments that I have found to be most helpful are comment numbers 17, 22, 44, 50, 53 and 57. The older comments have a lot of helpful tips. Good luck
I was wondering how many cups of icing does this make? Will I need to double the recipe to cover my cake in full?
Perhaps you would be willing to post a video on the preparation of the frosting and even include frosting the cake. I am looking forward to making the cake and the icing.
I could feel the love you have for your family just reading the caramel cake recipe. That’s the kind of cake I always look for at southern pot luck dinners. Enjoy your family, and remember things don’t always have to be perfect. Love and laugher fills in any imperfection. Thank God!
Every night I pray for God to “fill in my holes!” 🙂
Your directions aren’t very clear…what temperature are you supposed to cook the icing at? For approximately how long? Do you let it cool then beat it? Or beat it while it’s still hot? Mine came out okay but it was so thick it broke the cake apart. I used a regular stainless steel pot and cooked it for 50 minutes over medium low heat, it came out good but never got fluffy. I would recommend frosting the cake with the icing slightly warm.
My icing came out great bUT one thing I don’t have that caramel color… what did I do wrong?