Maple Brown Sugar Fudge Cake Recipe: Cake & Fudge Frosting

This maple brown sugar fudge cake recipe walks you through baking a single-layer sheet cake and topping it with a boiled fudge frosting that sets glossy and thick without a speck of powdered sugar. The payoff is a tall, tender 13-by-9 cake that serves 16 to 20 people, finished with a topping The Kitchn describes as creamy and smooth, lighter than fudge but firmer than a glaze, instead of a standard buttercream. Baking the cake itself follows a method any home baker already knows: butter and sugar creamed together, eggs beaten in, dry and wet ingredients alternated. The frosting is a different animal. It's a boiled-sugar technique borrowed from fudge and penuche, and it calls for a candy thermometer and a bit of patience. Plan for more total time than the short ingredient list implies: prep runs about 30 minutes and the cake bakes for close to an hour, but the frosting alone needs 45 to 55 minutes of undisturbed cooling plus another 10 to 35 minutes of beating, depending on whether you