Butter Cake with Orange Butter Cream Frosting and Caramel Toffee

Cakes and New Year's eve go a long way back to my childhood for me. Mum and Dad would sleep on time and we three kids would be up till midnight pretending to be asleep. we would go out in the evening buy a cake and snacks, enjoy the laughter and cheers coming from roof tops, filling up our street. We would tune in to FM, describing the crazy Delhi parties especially the ones on Connaught Place which was barricaded with no entry for vehicles, the people partying would cheer into FM microphones. Me and my brother used to be determined not to fall asleep as we really wanted that cake so we would wait up and at midnight wake our sister up and enjoy the most delicious scrumptious cakes ever!

I didn't get a chance to bake a cake for new year's eve like I had planned but I did bake one later. The best butter cake ever and it was Martha Stewart 's recipe just right amount of everything, sweet and moist.

I've used butter cream frosting for this cake and added orange jam, which a friend of mine made, to the frosting. Make your butter cream frosting like you normally would and at the end fold in your favourite jam (preferably a chunky texture) into the frosting. My orange jam had orange rind and that just gave it the right amount of bitterness. The caramel toffee shards on the top of the cake are burnt sugar which i had spread out like a sheet on a greased surface and once it was almost dry I broke it irregularly pieces and just arranged it asymmetrically on top of the cake.I love the translucency of caramel toffee over butter cream and it gives a little crunch with every bite you take.

It is easy to pull some strands from your toffee when it is hot, just dip a fork into the caramel and pull out the strands and leave them on a separate plate after breaking them free from the fork. I didn't use any cream in the caramel, just pour sugar in a pan and allow it to burn if you like add a pinch of salt to it and stir a bit while the sugar is melting to caramelise it evenly.

I enjoy taking photos of all the cakes I make as it makes me love them again and again long after they are gone!