Amazingly Awesome Cake

My parents and grandfather were in Tucson this weekend for commencement, and I made this caramel chocolate cake from Annie's Eats for Mother's Day.  Holy crap was it delicious.  So, so good.  I wound up not using salt...I know my mom and I both love salted desserts, but I wasn't sure how popular it would be otherwise.  I do think it would be good salted, but it was also incredibly delicious without salt.  I also made this with store-bought caramel...I just can't make caramel to save my life.  I've struggled with it since the first time I tried, and from my three attempts this go-around, I wound up with 1 slightly burnt batch, and 2 crystallized batches... Boo.  The upside is it still tastes fabulous with non-home-made caramel (even if I did catch some flack for it).

At this point I've tried a lot of recipes, and I know I bake pretty well, so it takes a lot to impress me, and I was totally blown away by this cake.  I'd say this is probably in the top three things I've ever made. This cake made such an impression on my grandfather that Little Sister said he was still raving about it when they got home tonight.

Here it is.  Dark chocolate cake, caramel Swiss buttercream filling, fudge-y chocolate frosting.