Caramel 3 Milk Cake

I was baking last weekend – a rare thing around  here!

Don’t get me wrong. I can bake. Sometimes I even enjoy baking. But it is not a common occurrence recently so the kids got pretty excited to see me in the kitchen with the MixMaster out!

The reason for this sudden baking activity?

One of my colleagues at work had a birthday so I was baking birthday cake.

I have to say here that one of the best things about going back to work part-time in the last year or so has been the people. After over 10 years at home with kids, it has been lovely to have colleagues again. I’m super lucky because these lovely colleagues have really become friends, wise friends with older children than me who can give me sensible advice and such wonderful encouragement on my journey as a mum.

Not to mention that they have had endless patience in teaching me to do my job!

But back to the cake…

Rumour had it that the birthday girl liked caramel so when someone suggested this Caramel 3 Milk Cake from Donna Hay’s website was super easy, I ran with it. In a quick grocery run, I picked up the ingredients – I don’t usually keep buttermilk and caramel in my pantry – and put them aside for later.

When I came to look at the recipe it wasn’t quite as simple as I had expected. (I’m sure there’s a lesson there about reading the whole recipe before you decide to make the cake but never mind…) I  jumped in and baked the cake – Phase 1 of the recipe. Easy peasy! Love Donna Hay’s recipes for that.

After cooling it completely in the tin, I got to Phase 2 – mixing the 3 milks + caramel together to pour over it. There was a lot of liquid for this cake to absorb!! But I dutifully followed the recipe and made sure the tray was going to catch the leaks. Into the fridge overnight it went.

Phase 3 was where I started to get worried. All that lovely milk from Phase 2 was still leaking out of my cake! It wasn’t looking at all pretty. Kinda mushy on top and spongy. When I took off the tin, there was a lot of leakage. Sigh.

Oh well. Back into the fridge for a little longer in the hopes of either absorbing more or drying out a little.

In hindsight: I should have left it on that tray with a lip to catch the liquid. But then my fridge did probably need cleaning…

Finally whipped cream and caramel to finish it off and it was good to go.

Phew!

By this stage, I had two sick kids at home so the cake went off to work with a willing courier and I texted apologies in case it was a failure. As you do.

But by all accounts it was yummy and no one noticed the leaky factor.

So would I make this cake again? Yes, but I would reduce the amount of milk by half next time I think.

Check out the recipe here – the piece that came back home was yummy!

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