My husband has a birthday coming up and his cake request is an ooooooold school multilayer cake (9-12 I think) with some sort of caramel frosting that gets kind of crystallized/hard.  Think southern baptist potluck, deep south and old ladies.  I have so many questions….sigh.  What type of vanilla/yellow cake lends itself well to being sliced so thin? Also, how do I achieve the frosting?  ANY help would be appreciated.  He’s my sweetie so it’s worth the effort, but ,r eally, couldn’t he have picked something out of the cake bible!?  I’m more of a bread baker, but enjoy making cakes a couple of times/year. I think this one will be memorable for one reason or another!

Bakerella did a 12 layer cake a while back and gives a few options on how to achieve the layers. You can choose the one that best appeals to you. When I tried it I preferred baking each layer separately.
http://www.bakerella.com/fourteen-for-the-fourteenth/

Martha in her Baking Handbook has a recipe for a Dobos Torte which may possibly be the one recipe of hers not actually available online but here is a photo from a blogger that resembles the books cake closely. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_9I93YP0ordE/ShxgIIoHu0I/AAAAAAAAAZw/IoYk3v1WeE0/s400/DSC09541.JPG

Here is a baking group that took on the Dobos Torte so a ton of ideas here.
http://delectabledeliciousness.blogspot.com/2009/08/august-daring-bakers-challenge-dobos.html

and this link gives tons of ideas
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/377983

Sorry, not much help for the frosting though.

Google southern caramel cake. That will keep you busy for awhile.

Or look through Rose’s cookbooks and invent your own version. Good luck!

The Bakarella link is super. I think I’ll try the 12 aluminum pans as well for baking individual layers rather than trying to evenly slice layers. What a fun adventure this will be. I also found a southern living recipe for old fashioned caramel frosting, so hope it works with all those layers. I mean, wow. the cake looks just stunning when cut. I’ll post a show and tell when I get it completed. Thanks for the input!

The frosting in this one also looks very interesting. Have had it on my bake list for awhile!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/dining/163brex.html?_r=2&ref=dining

I remember seeing a recipe for southern caramel cake on the Saveur magazine site a while back, so you could also try there for more ideas!

What you are looking for is a Dobos Torte - check out any reputable Hungarian cookbook.

In Dec 2009, the NY TIMES had a nice article about Southern multilayer cakes and also caramel cakes/icing.  I particularly liked the author’s comments about the caramel cake and the recipe.  Someday I will have the nerve to try it.  Here is the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/dining/16Bake.html?_r=1

Here’s my attempt at a chocolate version, called Smith Island Cake.  Ok, it’s funny (now) although at the time it wasn’t.  It was my son’s 24th birthday cake.  It tastes GREAT.  But there was “slide-age”

Couple of things I’d recommend:  use a cake batter recipe that is liquid-y, meaning you can tilt the pan and it levels itself, as opposed to a thicker batter that needs to be leveled with an off-set spatula.  Use a frosting recipe that sets up stiffly; ice roughly half of your layers, chill, then build the rest.

If you’re going to bake the rounds as individual layers, a nice little trick is to bake the cake with the carmel layer already in the pan. You’ll need to prep the pans as per usual and cut the parchment rounds to be EXACTLY the size of the pan bottom (or plan on having a tough cleaning project to remove the carmel!).  For each of three pans, use 230 gms BUTTER, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 cup firmly packet brown sugar and 1/4 cup heavy cream.  Beat room temp butter for about 5 minutes with the paddle in a KA-type mixer until fluffy, then cream the brown sugar and salt into it for ~ 4 or 5 more minutes, adding the heavy cream during the last 2 minutes of mixing.  Spread the mixture evenly over the bottom of your papered, greased and floured pans, then refrigerate them while you make the first batch of yellow cake batter.  Pour the batter over the chilled mixtur in the pans and bake as usual, adding about 3 minutes to your normal baking time.  This is really good, and can be supplemented by adding coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts to the carmel layer before the batter.  Amazingly enough, this layer of nuts will stay free of batter after baking and have the best carmel layer over them in the top of the round.  They are so attractive after baking I have served them several times without frosting.  If you do full-sized rounds, they are really nice with a custard filling and fruit between layers.  I like banana cake with a vanilla custard and sliced raw bananas between rounds.

I would suggest that if you do the individually baked thin layers rather than torting a frozen pound cake, that you freeze the rounds about 30 minutes just prior to assembly of the finished cake to make handling the thin rounds much easier.  Lots of good carmel buttercream frostings out there, make sure to use a serrated knife to slice/saw the cake when serving to avoid pushing the frosting/filling out of the assembled cake.

HTH