Birthday Cake

I'm quite behind in the food blog arena, but that doesn't mean we haven't been cooking and eating :-). I'll try to add a couple of updates from the last month or two and to start off here is the cake we made this year for Mom's birthday. The last two years we have been at Henry's race in Alabama around her birthday and we've taken a cake to celebrate.

This year we decided to try a new recipe from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook I got for Christmas. We made Caramel Pecan Layer Cake. It was very simple to make, and the final product turned out better than I expected after I was quite overwhelmed with the sweetness of the icing which I made first. The caked ended up being lighter than I expected and a nice deviation from our "go to" German Chocolate and Carrot Cakes.

Here is the recipe.

Cake Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup softened, unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs (at room temperature)
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Icing Ingredients:
2 sticks softened, unsalted butter
5 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons dark corn syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Garnish:
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped toasted pecans

Make icing first, the day before the cake to give the brown sugar time to sit and improve the texture.

Icing Directions:
Cream butter until smooth in large bowl on medium speed. Add milk, syrup, and vanilla and beat until smooth and creamy (3-5 minutes). Store at room temperature for up to 2 days.

Cake Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Grease and lightly flour three 9 x 2-inch round cake pans, then line the bottoms with waxed paper.
- Toast pecans on a baking sheet for 15 minutes (or until lightly browned). Set aside
- Combine flours in small bowl and set aside.
- Cream butter in large bowl on medium speed. Add sugar gradually and beat until fluffy (~ 3 minutes)
- Add eggs (one at a time), beating well after each addition.
- Add dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. Beat until all ingredients are incorporated with each addition being careful to not over beat.
- Divide the batter into prepared pans and bake for 25-30 minutes (until cake tester comes out clean).
- Let layers cool in pans for 1 hour.
- Remove from pans and cool completely on wire rack.
- When layers are cool ice cake, filling between layers with caramel frosting and springiling with 1/3 of pecans on each later.
-Ice top and sides and sprinkle with remaining pecans. ( I chose not to ice the sides to reduce the sweetness a bit).