Salted Butterscotch Bourbon Cake with Minty Buttercream Icing

It’s Friday and I’m about to shut it down for a solid 30 hours. What a week! Whew! Let me tell you a little bit about it. Last Thursday, in a furry of last-minute editorial deadlines for this and this, I hopped on a plane at 6 am and flew to Tampa, FL to joyfully sit and chat with my friend Lissette, host of Positively Tampa Bay on ABC Action News, about summer fashion and beauty trends. Check it out segment! But, no time spent with Lissette is complete without enjoying great food, whipping up something together, and noshing on it. So last Friday morning, with even more furry than the previous two days, I went on camera and shared some delectable Father’s Day brunch ideas.

The highlight: This insanely, ridiculously, sexy cake. Salted, yes salted butterscotch and bourbon with a slightly minted buttercream icing with hard candy cracklings. Every bit of of it was made from scratch — my first one in 10 years! It was a victory. A major victory.

I’ve been tweaking this recipe, all three components, for a few weeks now, finally settling on this ratio of ingredients. I’m not a baker. Let’s be clear on that.  But I do love to eat dessert any time of the day and am quick to forgo savory entrées for a sublime piece of chocolate. And,  I do love the challenge of making something spectacular when it’s not natural for me; or something I do on a regular. The most baking I do is flan. You already know that, though.

But now, all of that has changed. Literally.

I was so determined and so excited about making this cake that I stopped at nothing short of acquiring a new KitchenAid mixer to find some serious inspiration.

I love cake, but it has to be incredible for me to want to make it. The idea of a salted butterscotch bourbon flavor  planted itself in my creative mind after a recent meeting with a colleague who represents the Mayflower Hotel in D.C. They host a Bourbon and chocolate tasting every Tuesday night; and while I don’t drink whiskey, I thought it would be wildly sexy to add it to a cake especially made for our Fathers.

And well, the salted butterscotch sauce bit came from my obsession with anything caramel, buttery, and salty, all in one. It just makes delicious sense. The balance is a perfect outpouring of contrasting flavors that love combining. It’s really what made the cake the glorious 9″ of goodness it turned out to be.  It’s so divine, it deserve its own post. I’ll get into more detail on how it all works and the wonderfully classic touch it represents in baking.

The cake is screaming!

I won’t claim it to be the fanciest cake, at least aesthetically, but in flavor, texture, and taste, it’s ALL there. It’s sexy with the generous drool of butterscotch sauce dripping down the sides. And for added depth, I made some hard candy, broke it into geometric, imperfect pieces, and topped it. And don’t worry about the minty buttercream. It’s barely there, but enough to make you stop and raise your eyebrow, in wonderment of an unexpected flavor (and scent).

The Father’s Day cooking segment aired today and I’ve not seen it. But as soon as I get my hands on a copy of the clip, I’ll be sure to share it, including the mayhem behind-the-scenes as I prepped with excited energy. If you’ve already seen it, then you’ve already seen this cake, only I decorated it differently. I’ll talk more about that in my next post, which you’ll find wildly entertaining. Because that’s what I do! Entertain you with delicious food!

To all the dads out there that make our lives as children, even adult children, so very special, THANK YOU! Be blessed and continue to do what you do best: raise your children in the way of the Lord.

The progress, in part, via Instagram:

 (Mixing at 12:30 am; Icing at 10 am; Styling at 11 am)

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Eat well, love unapologetically, pray with true intention, and take care of yourself.

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Enjoy

SALTED BUTTERSCOTCH & BOURBON CAKE WITH MINTED BUTTERCREAM ICING

Ingredients:

•  1.5 cup whole fat buttermilk, room temperature
• 2 large eggs
• 1 large egg white, at room temperature
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 6 Tbsp. good quality Bourbon
• 2/5 cups cake flour
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• 2/3 cup (125 grams) dark brown sugar
• 1- 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into 6 pieces

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350F. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, egg whites, vanilla, and bourbon. Add flour, baking powder, salt, and dark brown sugar to stand mixer and whisk on slow-medium. Lower speed to medium and individually add pieces of butter until your dry goods started clumping into small pieces. Don’t worry about that texture. It’s normal. Add in 3/4 milk mixture and beat on medium speed for one minute. Without turning off mixer, add the remainder of the milk mixture and beat on medium for an additional minute. You will have a silky smooth and creamy batter. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and beat for 20 more seconds.

Pour mixture into a 9″ bundt or cone cake, scraping all of batter with a medium rubber spatula. Bake on 350F for 35-40 minutes depending in your oven. Remove and let cook.

For Buttercream Icing

Ingredients:

• 3 cups confectioner’s sugar
• 1 cup butter, room temperate or almost melted
• 3 Tbsp. heavy whipping cream
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 tsp. mint extract

Method:

In medium bowl, whisk sugar and butter until smooth, using hand mixer, for about three minutes, maintaining a circular motion and scooping up all ingredients.  Add whipping cream and extracts and whisk on medium speed for another minute or two. Cover and let sit (or chill) until ready to use.

For Butterscotch Sauce

Ingredients:

• 4 tablespoons salted butter
• 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 tsp. sea salt
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method:

In medium saucepan, melt the butter with the brown sugar and the 1/4 cup of heavy cream, stirring until smooth. Let sauce cook at a super low bubbling simmer. Don’t stir. Reduce heat. Add salt and vanilla extract and stir for 30 seconds.

Make sure your sauce is at cooled off but not hot or at full room temperature for your cake, otherwise, the buttercream icing will start to break down a bit and look,well, not so pretty. If at room temperature, it’ll be more solidified and harder to pour over.