Heavenly Cake Bakers: Unadorned Simplicity

Is that an oxymoron?

I considered dressing up this cake for the camera, but I decided that its rigorous simplicity demanded simple presentation. We ate it just like this, and it was complete in itself. The Karmel Cake, which is also a caramel cake, is a butter cake made with a milk/brown-sugar caramel in the batter, which gives it a subtle depth of flavor and a crunchy brown crust.

I subbed some white sugar and molasses (my usual) for the brown sugar in the caramel. I also baked it in an 8" pan instead of a 9" (I don't have any 2" high 9" pans), which made it a little taller and increased the baking time (and the dome), but no matter. I wish I'd taken the caramel just a little bit farther into the dark side, but there will be other chances. It was supposed to cool entirely, which would have made for a bit of a stiffer batter, but even warm, it did just fine. Having had a terrible horrible experience with a large vat of chai caramel at work the other day (think shop filled with smoke, oven filled with goo, entire day's production thrown off), I decided to take this one easy. Sometimes cooking at home is just so peaceful.