Caramel Apple Cake

Guess what?  I made the most amazing, beautiful, time consuming cake of my life last week....not once, but twice.  Am I insane?

Um, yes.

Here is the Caramel Apple Cake in all it's glory.

Ahhhh-- cue angels singing.

Please visit The Great Cake Company for the amazing recipe. 

And I will mention I did make the homemade apple sauce, but I skipped the Brandy and the Boiled Apple Cider (I used instant apple cider, so not the same I'm well aware..but sometimes you have to make do.)

So why did I make this this really huge, fantastic, time consuming cake twice?

Well, dear friends, the day before my daughters birthday last week, we had a Church activity which involved either bringing Chili, a Pie, or a Cake for a cooking contest/dinner. The day before the contest I was checking out Pinterest when I came across this photo:

I was sold immediately. 

After checking her website I began to wonder if I could pull this off-- or if I wanted to devote the time necessary to pull it off.  I showed my husband the photo and he promised me he'd help.

We insanely decided to make two cakes.  Since we figured the one brought to the Church activity would be all gobbled up-- and we'd need one for the next day, anyways.  And besides, what two year old doesn't want a Caramel Apple Cake?

The next day I was running late, as usual and by the time I got home to start the cooking I knew I was going to be immensely pressed for time.  But my husband was there by my side helping me every step of the way, so I figured I could still make it.

The cake was done and all put together exactly 10 minutes after the Church dinner had started.

Yikes.

But off I went hurrying to the Dinner. 

After a ten minute drive to the church and running inside, you can imagine my shock when I lifted the lid to see my entire cake, slumped off to the right side,  huge hole in the middle, frosting melting all off the cake, everything looking like perhaps on the way there I had dropped it off the freeway first.

I was not happy.

Problem?  The cake (as you might have guessed) was not cooled, nor the frosting, and it slid and fell apart all over the place.

Late and slightly grumpy, I placed my cake on the table with all the others to await it's judging.

Needless to say it did not win any prizes.

I did tell some of my friends to at least try my cake-- and they did.  They assured me it still tasted really yummy, though the presentation was surely lacking.

I came home that night with one-third cake left.  I was glad at least people were willing to give it a try.

The next day I didn't allow myself to get frustrated by the day before.  

I felt like I had learned some valuable lessons-- i.e. start early, don't travel with a warm cake, let the cake spend lots of time in the fridge.  

Early the next morning we started again.

This time around everything was a lot easier. For starters, the day before we had made twice the cake batter, so in the morning all I had to do was take the batter out of the fridge, place it in the pans, and cook them.

Then I let them cool Several hours, before I added the caramel and frosting. 

I'm proud to report, day two's cake adventure was a total success! 

ps-- I will mention we always took the peanuts off the cake before serving it to our two year old. 

One last look, because I was really proud of this cake, and all the work that went into it.