Recipe Review: Boozy Bourbon Caramel Spiced Cake

 CAKE! I love cake. And I always enjoy the challenge of making one from scratch. Baking takes precision, creativity, effort and a whole lot of love. I greatly enjoy making cakes that are layered and frosted with a mouth-watering icing that you could just eat on its own. Also, I love how one can be so artistic with cakes, involving piping kits, sprinkles and other décor ideas. The possibilities are endless.

BOOZE! I also love booze. Adding alcohol to baking or cooking is always a bonus for me. I am definitely on board that train. And by including the name of that alcohol in the recipe title makes it sound even more desirable to eat.

Over the holidays I knew that I really wanted to make a cake. It has become a tradition for me to test out a different cake recipe each year. I knew that my family enjoys eating coffee/spice cakes, so when I stumbled across this recipe on Pinterest by Sugar and Soul, I could feel in my heart this was the cake to create.

The recipe has everything a perfect cake should have. A moist, flavourful batter, a sweet, buttery frosting and an irresistible caramel sauce. My mouth was watering just reading the ingredient list. I knew that since the batter was full of warm, earthy spices it would pair well with the sweetness of the icing and caramel sauce.

As for the difficulty level of this masterpiece, I found it to be not too complicated. I thoroughly enjoyed baking this cake and making the additional accompaniments. The only thing I would warn people is that everyone should make sure they have lots of time to make it. There is nothing worse than rushing a cake. I find my stress level goes sky high when I rush baking and will take away all enjoyment from the experience.

The Taste Test

First, the cake. The flavours were well balanced with warm spices and a subtle smoky, sweetness from the molasses. The cake was baked to a moist yet dense perfection. And even though there is bourbon in the batter, once it is baked you cannot even taste the booziness. The alcohol is baked off but the hint of bourbon flavour does enhance the other ingredients. Pair the cake alone with a deliciously bitter cup of coffee and you have a beautiful marriage.

Second, the caramel sauce. And might I add, the best caramel sauce I have ever tasted. Even my husband, who is a huge caramel fan, said that it was the best caramel sauce he has ever had. My friends, it wasn’t just good; it was damn good! It was buttery, it was sweet, and it was oh so creamy. It reminded me of the flavour you get from a Werther’s caramel, but better. By all means try the caramel sauce! Also, it goes perfectly with so many other treats. I had a lot of sauce left over so the next day I sliced up some apples and used the caramel as a dip to create a fresh and scrumptious delicacy.

When making the caramel sauce I knew that I wanted to make both a kids’ version and an adult version. The recipe says once the sugar, butter and cream are evenly mixed, you can then add your bourbon whiskey after taking the pan off the heat. Before I added the alcohol, I first only added the vanilla and then poured half of the sauce into a separate container (which I made sure to label for the kids). Then with the remaining sauce in the bowl I mixed in the bourbon to create the adult version.

Third, the buttercream frosting. Sooooo good. So creamy, so rich, so fluffy and so sweet, but not too sweet where it hurts your teeth. The sweetness is also accompanied by a slight tanginess from the silky cream cheese that is added to the recipe. I loved how the creator said to mix some caramel sauce into the icing. Such an amazing idea and an easy way to make a caramel frosting. Again, since I had kids to share the cake with I only put the kids caramel sauce into the frosting mixture to ensure they would not receive any alcohol. Furthermore, the frosting was quite easy to spread between the layers of the cake as well as all around the cake.

What to do with leftover frosting? If you were a kid that grew up with the loveable snack called “Dunkaroos” then you know where I am going with this. Save your left over frosting in a bowl and store it in the fridge. An amazing way to enjoy the remains is to dip “Teddy Grahams” into the deliciousness. And there you have it, homemade “Dunkaroos.” And much cheaper than the store bought snack. This idea is all thanks to my lovely husband. 

In summary, this cake is absolutely wonderful. The writer truly knew what they were talking about when creating a cake that involves the perfect balance of sugariness and spices. The spiced cake pairs so well with the rich buttercream frosting along with the sweet, sexy caramel sauce. When taking that first bite, (whether that’s face first into the entire cake or one fork-full of a bite) you can detect sweet, warm, spiced, tangy, comforting and utterly creamy flavours all bundled together in this dessert. In my opinion, this is a match made in heaven.