Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Salted Caramel Sour Cream Cake. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post.  The original recipe can be found over at Oh, Bite It!.

Robyn’s Take:

I don’t remember exactly how this recipe came to my attention, but in my notes I’ve mentioned Connie and Kelly. What I THINK happened is that months and months ago, Connie or Kelly posted the link to the recipe on Facebook with a suggestion that we give it a try, and then Kelly or Connie seconded that motion. So I added it to the list and now we’re finally getting around to it.

Amanda will extra love this recipe because it starts with a boxed cake mix and includes a jar of caramel sauce and frosting from a container.

Your ingredients:

White cake mix, caramel sauce, white frosting, sour cream, and salt.

Step one, make the cake following the directions on the back, and then add in 1/2 cup of sour cream.

Step two, eat some damn batter as you’re pouring it into your 9×13 baking pan. What would be the point of making a cake if you can’t eat some of the batter?

Bake the cake according to the directions on the box.

“I just keep this bag warm ’til the cake is ready.”

When the cake is done, let it cool. Then, using a fork, poke some holes in the cake. First I tried using a regular fork, but the cake kept apart where I’d poked the holes. So then I tried using a serving fork, and same thing. Finally, I decided that “fuck it” was the order of the day (“fuck it” is pretty much ALWAYS the order of the day around here), so I jabbed a bunch of holes in the cake and called it good enough.

Dump half the jar of caramel sauce on top of the cake, and spread it evenly-ish across the top. Then let it sit for 5 minutes, to let the sauce sink in. Meanwhile, prepare your frosting.

To prepare your frosting, dump the frosting into a bowl and mix it with the remaining caramel sauce.

Frost the cake.

Sprinkle your salt evenly over the top of the cake. The original recipe really didn’t give any guidance on this, but I can tell you that I used about 1/4 teaspoon of salt over the whole cake.

Take a terrible picture of the cake.

(Confession: that picture was actually taken after I’d put the cake in the fridge overnight. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been nearly as neatly cut. It’s a really soft cake, so if you’re insistent on getting pretty, neatly cut pieces of cake, you’re going to need to refrigerate that bad boy.)

The verdict? A resounding “meh.” I like caramel, and I REALLY like salted caramel, but this just didn’t do it for me. Fred rated it a “meh” as well, and I’m not going to make it again.

I do think that if I’d made a buttercream frosting from scratch and used that instead of that nasty canned shit (I’m a frosting snob, I admit it!), it would have been much improved. But I’m not going to bother experimenting, because life’s too short to fiddle around with a recipe that didn’t blow you away.

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Nance’s Take:

“This is my favorite cooking blog, because y’all hate what you make a good percentage of the time, and I like that. Well, that and I’ve been following you two on the internet since the days of coal-burning web browsers.” – Patrick

Ohhh, you don’t even want to know how pissed I am because I really wanted to prove to him that we don’t hate everything and now I’m screwed.  I hated this GOD DAMN CAKE so bad that there are not enough swear words on Urban Dictionary.com to describe it.

Let’s start with this hot mess first. Why do I need to use motherfucking parchment paper?  That shit is expensive and I try to save it for jelly rolls and certain cookies.  Trying to press this into a cake pan was a freaking pain in my ass. And yes, I used the grease the pan first method. Still a pain in my ass.

Cat was very interested. I did not care because I was still mad about that parchment paper.

Julie decided it wasn’t worth her time and by the end of this hot mess I was wishing I followed her lead.

I didn’t even bother with a mixer because my time is precious.

I decided to use a big fork because I could and also because I wanted to make sure the holes were big enough for the caramel to go through.

Action shot.

Rick loves caramel better than chocolate so he was all about this cake. I was dubious because cake, caramel, and frosting are all so full of sugar that I thought this might be some serious goddamn overkill.

I don’t know, man. I just don’t know.

You could smell the fucking sugar.

Artistic shot of the salted shit storm.

Robyn’s going to shit, but I’m about to blow this motherfucker up.  This is exactly what I dislike about some food blogs. The enticing description, food styling and photography dazzle all of us so much that nobody ever thinks of the reality. The ingredients and photographs, combined with the blog entry, make for a beautiful looking dessert that everybody wants to make.  But the reality is that it’s so fucking sweet it makes your teeth hurt. The ingredients blend with one another so that all you have is a fork full of sugar mixed with a sugar syrup. Absolutely disgusting.

Everyone tried it, nobody would finish their piece, and the entire cake ended up in the garbage can. Total waste of food, money and time. There are times when people are selling you a dream that you need to wake the fuck up and realize that it’s bullshit. Bullshit, coated with more bullshit, and wrapped up in a pretty bullshit picture.

Beware of bullshit.