I'm a newbie and need some help. 
My daughter has requested a chocolate cake with caramel buttercream for her 16th birthday party. Please share any recipies you may have. I would also like to use a doctored cake mix for the chocolate or chocolate fudge cake. I'll be making a 10 inch, stacked with a 6 inch. Is this enough to feed 30 people? (generous portions) I'll be covering the cake with MMF. Any suggestions are soooo appreciated! 
well, I haven't tried it........gonna try it with IMBC today but it should definitely work with buttercream. Try putting a couple spoonfulls of vanilla/caramel coffee creamer into your bc........you could use powdered and then you wouldn't have to worry about it watering it down.......it should give you a nice caramel flavor without adding any caramel color! I just added some to a white cake mix and it's divine!!
This is a great chocolate cake from The Cake Mix Doctor:
Darn Good Chocolate Cake
one 18.25-oz. pkg. plain devil's food or fudge cake mix
one 3.9-oz. pkg. chocolate instant pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
1-1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Preparation:
Place rack in center of oven and heat to 350. Lightly mist a 12-cup Bundt pan with vegetable oil spray and dust with flour, shaking out excess.
Place cake mix, pudding mix, sour cream, water, oil and eggs in a large mixing bowl. Blend with electric beaters on low speed for one minute. Stop and scrape down bowl. Increase speed to medium and beat for two to three minutes more, scraping down bowl.
Fold in chocolate chips, making sure to distribute them well. Turn batter into the Bundt pan and bake at 350 for 58 to 62 minutes or until the cake springs back when lightly pressed and is just starting to pull away from the pan. Place on wire rack to cool for 20 minutes. Run a long, sharp knife around edge of cake and invert onto a rack to cool for 20 more minutes.
I think the caramels in the icing would be a disaster. They wouldn't mix in, they would harden and stick to the beaters. Maybe I am missing something, but I can just see you standing there with a gummed up mixer and lumps of caramel in your BC!! I would HATE for you to go through that. I think the creamer idea is good, or some LorAnn oil in caramel flavor would be excellent. As for the round pans... I don't know. That's a fairly heavy recipe, I don't know how it would turn out. Let me PM you a recipe that might work better!!
frosting:
http://busycooks.about.com/od/cakerecipes/r/caramelfrost.htm
Caramel Frosting
From Linda Larsen,
Your Guide to Busy Cooks.
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You can use this frosting to frost a sheet cake or to top off granola or apple cookies.
INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
3-4 cups sifted powdered sugar
PREPARATION:
In large saucepan, melt butter and add brown sugar. Bring this mixture to a boil, stirring frequently. Boil and stir for 1 minute until thickened. Remove from heat and add milk. Beat with wire whisk until smooth. Add vanilla and beat again. Then add enough powdered sugar until of desired spreading consistency; the frosting should be pourable. Pour frosting over cake and spread to cover. Let cool and serve. Frosts 13x9" cake.
To frost cookies, let frosting cool about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until thickened. Frost cookies and let sit until frosting sets.
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http://members.aol.com/Jimg004/frost2.html
CARAMEL FROSTING
Recipe By :
Serving Size : 20 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Frostings
Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1/4 cup Sweet cream or Half & Half
1 tablespoon Butter
6 tablespoons Brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon Salt
2 cups Confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla
Mix cream, butter, brown sugar and salt and place over low heat. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Do not let boil! Remove from heat. Stir in confectioners' sugar and vanilla. Stir until cool enough to spread on a 9" cake.
Tiffysma, the recipe says to bake in a bundt pan. Can I bake it in a round?
Sorry - I had a dr's appt to get to and had to run. Yes, I bake it in rounds for layer cakes and in 9 x 13's. I use mini chocolate chips, which melt and stay suspended in the batter. Always get rave reviews on it being so moist and chocolately. I use the DH Dark Chocolate Fudge mix.
I'm going to try the recipe you suggested Tiifysma. It sounds yummy and easy to make. In the recipe section it mentions using 3 eggs if doing a layer cake, otherwise it sinks in the middle. I need this cake to be sturdy since I'm stacking. Do you suggest leaving out 1 egg? Also I need enough batter for a 10 inch and an 8 ich. Double or triple the recipe? My pans are 3 inches deep. I want them to be tall.
I would not leave out an egg. You could make the 3rd egg just egg white if you want to. You might cut back on the sour cream since you will be baking in a 3 inch. I'd double the recipe for the 10 and 8 inches. I would also use the bake even strips and an inverted flower nail in the center to help it bake evenly. This cake does fine in 2 inch pans - 3 might be a bit deep for it (it is a dense cake); but I think if you do the strips and the nail and bake at 325 you'll be okay.
Okay....all done!
The cake turned out. I used a flower nail in the 10 inch. (I don't have strips)
I doubled the recipe and used almost all of it in the pan. I think next time I won't fill it as much since it was slightly overdone along the edges, which I ended up trimming. I was thinking of lowering the oven temp. What do you think?
I used an all butter buttercream icing and used the cooked down sweetened condensed milk. This turned out amazing! It blended into the buttercream so well and it has a light caramel flavor. My daughter said the icing tasted too buttery. This is the 1st time she's had buttercream icing. If I used the 1/2 butter and 1/2 Crisco recipe for buttercream would it help?
Once again thanks for your input and advice!
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