67-72 Chevy Pickup Cake

Family birthdays are when I experiment with new recipes. My husband and I have very different tastes in desserts. I prefer chocolate, he likes fruit or caramel. So for his birthday I came across a butterscotch cake with caramel icing.

He is also really into old trucks so I decided to make a cartoony version of his truck, a 71 Chevy pickup.

I took a picture of my husband's truck from the front end to help me figure out the proportions. Then I made a large circle out of fondant to cover the top of the cake. I cut out basic shapes of the truck's details from fondant. I used a small amount of water to hold the pieces in place on the circle. I did paint all the gray pieces silver with airbrush color, but it doesn't really show up in the picture.

Ingredients:

2 cups self-rising flour
1-1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup milk
5 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup butterscotch chips
Caramel Frosting (below)

CARAMEL FROSTING

1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 cups confectioners' sugar

Directions:

Cake:

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Spray a 10-inch tube pan with non-stick spray.
• In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, shortening, and 2/3 cup milk; beat until smooth.
• Add remaining milk, eggs, and vanilla; beat until smooth.
• Fold in butterscotch pieces.
• Pour into prepared tube pan.
• Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.
• Remove from pan; cool completely.
• Spread Caramel Frosting over the top and sides of the cake.

Frosting:

• In a small heavy saucepan, melt butter over low heat.
• Add brown sugar; boil, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes.
• Stir in milk until mixture returns to boiling.
• Remove from heat; cool.
• Beat in confectioner's sugar until thick enough to spread.

*I baked in two 9" round pans instead of a tube pan. Reduce the time to 25 minutes.

This is kind of a crumbly cake and the icing is not easy to spread once it has cooled. You will need to work quickly or drizzle the icing over the cake instead.

The icing didn't really taste like caramel to me, but it was really good.