<p>Just saw the discussion about caramel cake. Many in the south make the cake with buttermilk. I don’t think my mom did though. The key is the icing. My mom was never a fan of sweetened condensed milk so she just heated brown sugar, butter and milk. I can’t recall if she even used confectioner’s sugar or not. The key is to get it the right temperature - like making candy. I think she used a candy thermometer. Sometimes my mom made what she called a spice cake with caramel icing. The cake was made with a variety of spices - cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and had the caramel icing. My aunt was famous for her butterscotch pie - talk about decadent.</p>