Sweet Melissa Sunday-Toasted Pecan Cake

Happy Sunday everyone!! I am here with my Sweet Melissa Sunday recipe and it was a challenge for me. First, let me confess. I have never made a cake from scratch. Never. I love the cake mix boxes and use them all the time. So when I saw this week was a cake, I was nervous and excited at the same time. Leslie of Lethally Delicious picked this recipe and woah...it was a recipe. Here's the official title: Toasted Pecan Cake with Caramel Orange Marmalade and Burnt Orange Buttercream Frosting. That is a mouthful!!!


So, I am also not a fan of pecans. I don't hate them, but I tend to pick lots of other nuts over pecans. But I made the decision to stick to the recipe and I was so glad I did. Toasting the pecans really took them to the next level. They were delicious!! There are lots of ground toasted pecans in the cake itself. The filling is an orange caramelized marmalade filling and it's covered by a orange buttercream frosting.


The only thing I had problems with was the frosting. It was very buttery, almost too buttery. So after I had whipped it up, I added about 1 1/2 more cups of powdered sugar and whipped it again. That gave it a lighter texture and I liked it more because it didn't taste like a stick of butter in my mouth.

Verdict on the cake???? I LOVED the cake part. It was wonderful, those toasted pecans were amazing in the cake. The filling was...well, how do I say this...TOO SWEET!!!! I don't think i've ever used those words together before. But it was over the top sweet and overwhelmed the whole cake. The buttercream frosting was very very good. I added some fresh orange zest to give it more orangey flavor. But I really couldn't get past the filling being too sweet. I had one piece and was done with it.

My kids liked it. My husband loved it. In fact, he ate it every night for 3 nights straight and said it kept getting better. And he's not a big cake fan. So those were some strong words!


I think the cake itself, plain, would be awesome with a dollop of fresh whipped cream. And the toasted pecans dipped into the extra buttercream frosting was delish. I ran lots of extra miles this week to make up for that indulgence!! If you want to see more, please check the SMS Blog roll call to see what all the other bakers did this week. Thanks to Leslie for picking this cake, I had a great time making my first cake from scratch!!

Have a sweet one!!