Toffee Cake

I'm blogging. It's a miracle!

Seriously, folks, it's been quite a summer, and I apologize for my absence. Tim's had lots of swim meets, so I haven't been cooking a lot, and when I do cook, I usually make things that are old standbys, or I just throw a few things together and call it dinner. (And that was a really long sentence!) BUT, August is officially here now, and I have an entire month of meals planned. Some recipes are old, some are new, but as soon as I remember to bring my camera home from work, I should be back in the swing of things.

And so, without much further ado, a cake recipe. Excuse the icky photos; my camera's at work, so I took these pictures with my phone (and then spent way too long trying to get them from phone to computer).

This recipe comes from the Taste of Home magazine I swiped from my mother-in-law over Mother's Day weekend.

So, you will need:

8 ounces milk chocolate English toffee bits (at my grocery store, this was right next to the chocolate chips)

One cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Two tablespoons brown sugar

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One cup butter, softened

One and a quarter cups packed brown sugar

Four eggs

One teaspoon vanilla extract

Three cups all-purpose flour

One and a half teaspoons baking POWDER

Half a teaspoon baking SODA

Half a teaspoon salt

One and a quarter cups buttermilk

Combine the toffee bits, chocolate chips, and brown sugar in a bowl and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter will look slippery, slightly chunky, and pretty gross at this point. Beat in the vanilla.

After I beat the heck out of my batter (with three eggs at this point).

Combine the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and flour, and add in two batches alternately with the buttermilk.

After the first addition of flour.

After the final addition of flour and buttermilk. Kids, I'm not sure I've ever seen a more luxuriant bowl of batter.

Spread a third of the batter in a greased and floured 10-inch fluted tube pan. Sprinkle with half of the toffee mixture. Repeat with a third of the batter, the rest of the toffee mixture, and the rest of the batter. (Sorry I don't have pictures of this. But I'm sure you can imagine it.)

Bake at 350F for 55-60 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

The magazine picture of the cake.

As you can see, my cake was still un-frosted when I posted this (mostly because it's still cooling). I'm not sure it needs frosting at all, what with all the delicious goodness inside. If I get a wild hare to frost it, I have a jar of caramel sauce sitting in my pantry that might be wonderful on top, or a mostly full container of chocolate frosting in my fridge that I'm sure would also be delicious. However, the recipe did come with directions for frosting, so here they are:

Half a stick of butter

Two teaspoons flour

One 5 ounce can of evaporated milk

One cup packed brown sugar

In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Stir in flour until smooth. Gradually add in evaporated milk and brown sugar. Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 4-5 minutes until thick. Cool, and drizzle over cake.

Monday morning post script: I ended up throwing together a bunch of things for the frosting, which ended up being more of a glaze. I grabbed half a jar of chocolate frosting, about a quarter-cup of caramel sauce, and two tablespoons of marshmallow fluff, stirred them together, warmed it up a little, and poured over the top of the cake. And guys? Can we talk about this cake? It is DIVINE. And exceptionally rich. I had a teensy piece at 7:00 and felt way too full until close to midnight. I think this might be an after-lunch cake, not an after-dinner cake. You have got to make this today. TODAY! And in the interest of world peace, take some to your neighbors. Because this cake will change the world.

Seriously, how delicious does this cake look?