Chocolate + Caramel = Awesome, Part II

Chocolate on chocolate, with caramel hiding underneath. Yum.

As you may remember from this post, chocolate and caramel is one of my favorite flavor combinations. You really can't go wrong with gooey caramel and rich chocolate in any form. It's just the best.

Last month was my co-worker Michelle's birthday. Michelle is super sweet and a great baker, so I wanted to make something that would definitely be delicious. Since I wouldn't be able to sample the goods (due to the "no treats" part of my Going HAM rules), I knew chocolate and caramel would be a safe bet.

I liked the idea of making a poke cake, to allow for caramel filling, and I'd never made one before, so I thought it would be a new challenge. I couldn't find a recipe that was exactly what I wanted, so I read about 3,000 of them on Pinterest and pulled parts from my favorites to come up with this.

First, bake your cake as per usual. I used a chocolate cake mix, but you could make one from scratch if you're into that sort of thing.

Right after you remove the cake from the oven, use a spoon handle or other cylindrical object to poke holes in the cake. Here is where I went wrong: none of the recipes I read mentioned the fact that you should only poke about halfway down. Maybe I should've inferred that, from the photos I saw of the finished product, but I did not. So I poked holes all the way through the cake, and the filling all flowed to the bottom. Learn from my mistake and only go about halfway down.

Pokin' holes. Straight lines are not my forte.

Once you have all your holes, add your filling. I used a jar of caramel sauce (like for ice cream) mixed with a can of sweetened condensed milk.

Yeah, that looks pretty dang good. 

Refrigerate your cake for a couple of hours, and then it should be ready to frost. I took the easy way out and bought a can of chocolate fudge frosting, but again, choose whatever you like.

Warning: the top of the cake will be hideously sticky. To work around this, I globbed on the frosting and spread it out slowly. So I ended up with an extra-thick layer to avoid tearing the cake.

Once frosted, I added some chocolate sprinkles (this particular mix was cookie pieces, chocolate chips and sprinkles, found in the ice cream toppings section) and voilà, you're done.

The finished product. Don't worry, we ate some fruit for breakfast before the ladies tore into the cake.

As I said, I didn't try this cake, but T. Bob and the ladies at work loved it, so you'll have to take their word for it.

Chocolate-Caramel Poke Cake

1 chocolate cake mix
1 jar caramel sauce (I used a 12.25-oz. Smuckers jar)
1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 can chocolate frosting
toppings of your choice (I went for more chocolate, but nuts or a chopped-up Snickers would also be yummy)

Prepare cake according to package instructions. Remove from oven and poke holes (using a spoon handle or similar) about halfway through the cake. Mix caramel sauce and sweetened condensed milk, and drizzle over cake. Let cool completely, then refrigerate for 1-2 hours. Frost and add any desired toppings.