Chocolate Castles as wel

Taken from Southern Living Magazine:

Cake

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 cup light brown sugar,firmly packed

4 large eggs, room temp

3 cups flour

1 1/2 teas baking powder

1/4 teas baking soda

1/2 teas salt

1 cup milk

2 teas vanilla

Praline Frosting

3/4 cup unsalted butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed

4 large egg yolks

1 large can (12 oz) evaporated milk

2 teas vanilla

2 cups chopped pecans

Cake

Grease and flour 3 (9″) cake pans and preheat oven to 350. Cream the butter with both the granulated sugar and brown sugar until very light and fluffy, then add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Sift the flour with the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add to the sugar batter alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the dry mixture. Stir in the vanilla.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans and bake in the center of your preheated oven about 20-25 minutes or until cake tests done. Cool layers in their pans for 10 min, then loosen and turn out layers directly onto racks for cooling. Cool layers thoroughly before frosting.

For the frosting:

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat and stir in both sugars. Sugars will NOT dissolve. (they will dissolve in the final cooking stage)

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the evaporated milk until smooth, then whisk this mixture into the saucepan with the sugar mixture. Return saucepan to a medium heat setting and cook, whisking constantly, until mixture is thick, shiny and caramel-like, about 15-20 minutes. This is when the sugars will dissolve.  Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla and pecans. Cool frosting to a good spreading consistency which will be about 30 minutes. Spread evenly between cooled cake layers and over top and sides of cake.