Chocolate Pecan cake with Caramel frosting

Chocolate Sour Cream Cake with Pecans & Caramel Frosting

Who doesn’t love chocolate cake?  Well, I can tell you who, my parents and sisters! Growing up, I always received a vanilla cake with white vanilla frosting for my birthday because no one in my family liked chocolate cake.  Yes, I was a deprived child : )  As I got older, I started buying my own birthday cake or actually Faye would make my favorite for me, German Chocolate cake (yummy!).

Back to my fascination with chocolate cakes....since I know how to make my own chocolate cake these days, I like to experiment whenever I get a chance. This is one of my recent experiments. Imagine these wonderful ingredients: chocolate, sour cream, pecans and caramel.  Alone they can stand on their own, but together they form the most amazingly moist cake with sweet caramel frosting on top.  The perfect chocolate cake can't be too sweet because the sweetness of the frosting brings it all together.  This cake and frosting combination was perfect. I hope you all give it a try. Happy Cooking everyone.

Cake

2 cups flour

1 ¼ granulated sugar (white sugar)

¾ cup light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 cup water
½ cup unsalted butter

1 cup Sour cream

2 teaspoons Baking soda

3 beaten eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

Frosting

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup half and half

½ cup butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

5-6 cups confectioners’ sugar

½ chopped pecans

36 pecan halfs

CAKE
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1.       Preheat oven to 350

2.       Prepare two 9 inch pans flour and grease them (I recommend you line the bottoms.  When I baked the cake, the bottoms got stuck even though I floured and greased them)

3.       In a large bowl (or Kitchen Aid) combine flour and sugars and salt.

4.       In a double broiler (or you can put a small metal bowl over a sauce pan, where the water just barely touches the bowl), put the chocolate, water, butter to melt.  Stir gentle until the chocolate is well combined with the water and butter. 

 5. Once liquid chocolate is complete melted, Add the hot chocolate liquid to the flour mixture and blend.

6.  Add sour cream and baking soda to the chocolate cake mixture.

7. Beat eggs with vanilla.

8. Pour eggs into with the Sourcream and baking soda in the bowl and mix for 3 minutes

9. Pour finished cake mix into prepare cake pans and bake for 30 minutes

10. Remove cake pans from oven and cool for 10 minutes on a metal wire rack.  Once 10 minutes are done, remove cakes from pan and finish cooling them on the wire rake.

Frosting

1.  Combine half and half, brown sugar and butter in a small saucepan.  Bring to a boil.  Let it boil for about 1 minute.  Remove it from heat.  Pour the hot liquid in a large bowl and set it aside and let it cool for about 10 minutes.  

2.       With a tablespoon, take about 2 tablespoons of the caramel and pour over one of the cake bottoms and set aside

3.       With the remaining caramel, gradually beat in the 5-6 cups of confectioners’ sugar and the vanilla to make a nice thick frosting. 

4.       Starting in the middle of the cake with the caramel on it, start with about ½ to  ¾ cup of frosting and spread evenly over cake.  Sprinkle the chopped pecans. 

5.       Lay the other cake layer over the cake layer with the frosting and pecans.  Start frosting the cake starting at top and working your way to the sides. Make sure the cake is completely covered.

6.       Decorate the top of cake with the pecan halves