caramel cake with chocolate frosting

A week or so ago, I found a caramel cake mix at the grocery store. CARAMEL? I have never seen a caramel cake mix before! I was intrigued, thus I obviously had to buy it!

It's been sitting in my pantry for a while now... and I've been racking my brain to figure out what to do with it... thinking of flavor combinations.

Two or three days ago, I gave up. I googled it. And I found this beauty. I read the reviews and adjusted accordingly and OH. MY. WORD. And bonus! It was crazy easy to put together. And I may have eaten quite a few spoonfuls of the caramel cake dough... it was so delicious.

Here's the dough patted into a 13"x9" pan. The dough is really thick!

While that was baking, I found a recipe for chocolate frosting. I whipped it up (literally, haha) and WOW.

Beat the butter... and then you'll mix in your milk and sifted cocoa/sugar mixture. YUM. Add the very end, you mix in one teaspoon of vanilla. 

I thought you might need a close up of the icing. 

And then... putting two amazing things together:

So yummy. It was one of those things where I gave AJ a bite, and we just stood there making 'ooh' and 'ahh'  noises for a few minutes. I am going to buy another caramel cake mix SOON! You should too!

P.S. Is it care-a-mel or car-a-mel?

Here's the recipe for the caramel cake:

• 1 package caramel cake mix
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup (firmly packed!) brown sugar
• 6 tbsp. butter or margarine
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Step 1: Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease 13x9 pan.

Step 2: Combine EVERYTHING but the chocolate chips and mix it all together for a few minutes (until it's blended together) and then stir in the chocolate chips. IT IS REALLY THICK and it's supposed to be like that. Spread into the greased pan.

Step 3: Bake until a toothpick comes out clean when stuck in the center. Mine took 24 minutes. 

And the icing:

• 2 3/4 cups confectioners' (powdered) sugar
• 6 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 5 tablespoons milk (the recipe called for evaporated milk, but I'm not going to open up a can of that and not finish it, so I used skim milk... and it was still AMAZING)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Step 1: In a medium-sized bowl, sift the sugar and cocoa together.

Step 2: Cream the butter in your mixer until it's smooth. Alternate adding the sugar/cocoa and the milk until everything is added. Mix it up well!

Step 3: Add the vanilla and continue frosting until it's whipped up nicely. 

Step 4: Try it to make sure it's okay :)

too much chocolate cake.

We had dinner with some friends tonight and I brought one of my favorite super-easy desserts! Every time I bring this cake somewhere, it gets great reviews.

I would like to say this is an old family recipe or that it's a big secret, but it's not. Not at all. But it tastes like it is :)

It's called Too Much Chocolate Cake. You seriously mix all the ingredients together and then stir in the choco chips. How easy is that?

The other good thing about this recipe is that you can mix it up. I've used different flavors of the cake mix and pudding. For this version, I was hoping for a cookies and cream taste. I used vanilla pudding and crushed up Oreos. DELISH.

And I also threw in some white chocolate chips for color.

I had a vanilla glaze in the pantry to top them off. And I sprinkled the rest of the Oreos on top.

 Make this cake. You won't regret it.