You’ll love this easy caramel icing recipe! It’s made with basic pantry staples, takes around 10 minutes to make and beats store-bought frosting ANY day!
It’s been just over a year since my sweet 95-year-old Grandmother went to be with Jesus. And I’ve been finding myself thinking a lot about her life and the legacy she left.
Grandmother loved to cook and always found ways to serve people, both through her love of cooking and otherwise.
One dessert that she was known for far and wide, was her chocolate cake with caramel icing. I wonder how many of those she must have made in her lifetime. It had to have been in the thousands!
Her old-fashioned caramel icing was always so good and as a child, I loved to peel it off the cake in one piece, eat the cake by itself and then slowly savor the delicious caramel icing all on its own. As an adult, I’ve been known to do it sometimes too. 😉
A never fail caramel icing
The recipe for caramel cake icing that my Grandmother used was actually just slightly different than this one.
Grandmother’s recipe used the same ingredients but was pretty tricky to make. The process was a bit more exacting and required a lot more precision with temperature. It was also somewhat difficult to get it to consistently turn out perfectly.
Shortly after I married, an older lady from our church shared this easy recipe for caramel icing with me. I was so excited when I tried it because it tasted just like Grandmother’s famous recipe!
But instead of being tricky to make, this recipe was super easy and is pretty much a never fail caramel icing recipe and turns out perfect every time!
So I switched to this simpler recipe and have never looked back! I’ve made it for numerous extended family get-togethers and everyone has agreed that it tastes just like Grandmother’s!
We love this easy caramel icing on my Best Ever Chocolate Cake and it goes perfectly with my Super Moist Gingerbread Cake too.
Apple cakes, such as this Applesauce Cake, pair wonderfully with caramel icing as well.
Easy Caramel Frosting Recipe
Easy Caramel Icing
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter (4 oz.)
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- ¼ cup milk
- 2 cups sifted powdered sugar
Instructions
- Melt butter and brown sugar together on low heat. Bring to boil and boil 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
- Add milk and heat just until boiling again. Remove from heat and cool slightly.
- Mix in powdered sugar until smooth. (I find using a whisk or hand mixer really helps to get it nice and smooth.)
Notes
Other dessert recipes that you might enjoy:
Connie
Mine bit hard and fell off cake when cutting a bite. Did I cook the butter and sugar too long?
Lydia Beiler
Hmmm…that doesn’t sound like it turned out quite right. It’s hard to know exactly what went wrong but what you suggested is a good guess. The icing should be firm but still quite easy to bite into. It is firm enough though that my children like to sometimes separate it from the cake and eat it plain. But I’ve never had it fall off the cake when cutting it or taking a bite. I hope you can figure out what happened- it’s always so frustrating when something doesn’t turn out right!
CHERYL L MCCLELLAN
Made this Carmel icing for my husband’s birthday cake. It tasted just like what his mother used to make. We loved it and it was so easy to make.
Lydia Beiler
This is so delightful to hear, Cheryl. And a belated happy birthday to your husband!
Laura Caldwell
Can this icing be made ahead of time? It sounds amazing!
Lydia Beiler
Hey Laura, if by made ahead of time you mean made and then used to frost a cake later, that won’t work. However, you can easily make the cake and frost it ahead of time as the icing holds up quite well- you can even freeze the cake fully iced if you want. My mom used to do that and we kids loved to eat it partially thawed! Hope that helps! Ps. Apologies for the slow reply.