1. The final cooking time for my cake was a lot longer than estimated in the instructions. I baked my cake for 32 minutes. I think I would have maybe pulled it out like three minutes earlier (without needing to open the oven several times) than I actually baked it to insure that the cake is not over done.
2. The praline icing. I had never made icing on the stove, so I was following these instructions closely in order to try to not mess it up. Unfortunately, I had some problems. Once I finished boiling the icing and stirred in the rest of the ingredients, I waited for it to set. Well I waited for probably 45 minutes and it still looked like a glaze. There is no way I could put it in the middle of the cake layers and the icing not ooze out and the layer slide off. So I added half a can of plain white icing and mixed it in and let it cool some more. The icing then set and was spreadable. Maybe adding more powdered sugar could have helped? I’m not sure. This could totally be due to my inexperience. However, maybe some clarification for less experienced cake bakers would be helpful.

Aside from my problems, this cake really did turn out great.