DRUNK CARROT POKE CAKE WITH SEA SALT CARAMEL

Steps:

• You will need to bake your cake the night before you serve it to allow the yummy goodness of everlasting love to seep through the cake.
• Preheat your oven to 350º. In a mixing bowl, combine cake mix, eggs, milk, butter, one package of vanilla pudding mix and sour cream until well combined.
• Pour batter into a well greased and floured 9x13 in. pan (you can also use a good baking spray too) and bake for 40-45 minutes. This will be the time that you thank God for the internet and justapinch.com for giving you easy access to great recipes!
• When cake is done and a toothpick comes out clean set aside and allow the cake to cool completely. ***Leave the cake in the pan as it will be too moist to remove.***
• While the cake is cooling down, begin preparing the stuff that makes life worth living by combining the other package of vanilla pudding mix, half and half, sweetened condensed milk and rum. Mix until well combined and is thin enough that it will pour over the cake. If it seems too thick, you can add a few teaspoons at a time of the half and half to the mixture until it's the right consistency but I don't ever need to do this. If the cake isn't cooled by the time you have finished making this, control your urges and put it into your fridge until you are ready to use it. Trust me, it's hard but...you can do it! {using my best Ahnold impression} If you like mixed drinks, this is where a rum and coke comes into the picture.
• After the cake has cooled completely, use a small wooden stick--I used a chopstick but you can also use a skewer but nothing bigger than that. Poke a lot of holes in your cake--don't go overboard and do too many holes though since you want your cake to hold together. I made about 8 holes per row.
• Pour that yummy goodness over the cake and put it into your fridge to set overnight. You don't have to cover the cake, but I like to use saran wrap anyway just to keep the cake moist and not get too dried out around the edges.
• The next day about an hour before serving your cake, prepare your frosting by combing all of the ingredients into your mixing bowl. Using the whisk attachment, beat it until it's thickened. Now here's the thing, since the frosting has a thick consistency to it, it will look like a lot but trust me when I say this, it'll be fine! ***Trial and error addition: I could only find sugar-free cream cheese pudding mix so I added about a teaspoon of sugar to the mixture to sweeten it up some otherwise it tasted a bit too bland for me. Now, this is just my observation, you can certainly use sugar free and not add any sugar. Just do a taste test first and see what you think.
• Once you have the frosting prepared, take a frosting spatula and spread it out over the cake being sure to spread it out evenly and making sure to cover the edges.
• Now, here comes the fun part...{rubbing my hands together} make the sea salt caramel sauce!! Now, in all honesty, this is NOT my recipe. I "borrowed it" from another website and OH MY GOD it is soo good!! In a heavy saucepan (see below for additional info on this), pour into it your water and sugar and stir until well combined--sugar should be completely dissolved. Do this over low heat. One the sugar has dissolved, increase the heat to medium-high-high and bring to a boil. You will not need to do any stirring during this process since the sugar will do its own thing during this process. (The recipe states you can use a wet pastry brush to wipe down the crystals from the side of the pot and since I had no idea what that was, I had to google it. For anyone who is like me and is unsure, it's basically a paint brush {blushing from embarrassment}. I didn't have a brush so I left it alone.) You will want to boil the mixture until it becomes a thick amber colored syrup. It took around 8 minutes for mine to get to this point.
• Once the syrup is ready, remove from the heat and slowly and VERY CAREFULLY pour in the heavy cream and whisk it. THE MIXTURE WILL BUBBLE SO THIS PART IS VERY IMPORTANT! I used an oven mitt to avoid being splattered with the hot caramel. ***Keep a bowl of ice cold water by your side incase you do get some splattered so that you can immediately immerse your hand into the water. Once you have combined the heavy cream, add in the unsalted butter and granulated salt and mix until butter has melted. Transfer into a heat safe dish and allow to cool. (I placed my sauce into the fridge for about an hour and that also gave my frosting time to set up in the fridge too)
• Remove sauce and cake from fridge, drizzle the sea salt caramel over the frosting and if you want to, sprinkle some course sea salt over the caramel. You can also add chopped pecans too! *Your caramel is good up to 2 weeks in the fridge and can be used as a topping for ice cream, coffee, etc.*
• Your beautiful cake is now ready to serve. This is the part where you may need to say a few prayers to the good Lord above before your first bite since you might have some impure thoughts and utter some unsavory words after your first taste. ~{~This is good with a scoop of ice cream with some of the caramel drizzled over it.~}~
• **ADDITIONAL INFO FOR MAKING CARAMEL SAUCE** I don't recommend using anything but a heavy gauged saucepan for this since other thinner pots tend to cook unevenly. Also, I don't recommend using a non stick pan since high heat can cause damage to it and also release compounds from the finish.
• ***CLEAN UP INFO*** Don't panic like I did when you see your beautiful metal pot with all of that brown sugar stuck to the sides and bottom of it. I soaked mine in really hot water and dish soap for about 10 minutes and it wiped right out with a sponge and washed it with dish soap. Good as new!