German Chocolate Cake

 

With the exception of one year when my husband decided to bake me a cake that he had seen on the cover of Gourmet magazine, henceforth known as “The Cake Incident of ‘97“, I have always had a German chocolate cake for my birthday. My mother started making these for me when I was 11 years old and kept it up until shortly before she passed away. Yesterday I was feeling nostalgic, so decided that I was going to make one for myself.  I figured that after making that Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake that German chocolate cake would be easy. And essentially, it was. The difficulty is that the more I bake, the more I realize that my KitchenAid is too small. When I put the butter and the sugar into the work bowl and turned it on, it shot everything all over the counter. Sugar was everywhere, including between my toes. So, I rescued the butter (god that stuff is expensive), and had to get out my cleaning equipment to clean off the counters, the front of the dishwasher, the floor, and myself. OK. I started again, and things were going fairly smoothly. Yes, I had to inhale puffs of flour as I added that, and wear splatters of both the buttermilk and chocolate mixture, but I got through it. Then when I went to put it into the cake pans (I used 3 8” cake pans instead of 2 9” because I like the taller cake) I couldn’t get the bowl loosened from the stand mixer. Apparently enough stuff had fallen down that it solidified it to the base. I had to use a measuring cup and dip the batter out to put into each of the cake pans. Then, in order to get the work bowl loose, I had to hit it with a meat mallet!

I didn’t finish the cake and clean up until around 3:30 PM, so that thing took me all day. And then, the icing on the cake (if you’ll pardon the pun) was that I had a slice and it nearly made me sick. As much as I love German chocolate cake, it’s now too sweet for me. I haven’t really had sugar in three months, and it nearly made me ill. So I shoved the rest into the refrigerator so the icing would firm up, and tonight I’m going to slice it, wrap the slices in plastic, and stick it in the freezer. I can’t believe that I spent my entire day, half a dozen eggs (eight actually) a pound of butter, and all that time on an attempt to revisit my past, only to end up making myself sick. If this doesn’t tell you that you can’t go home again, nothing will!

For those of you who love your sweets, this is a classic.

German Chocolate Cake

Slightly adapted from Baker’s Chocolate

 1 4-oz. pkg. Baker's German sweet chocolate

½ c. boiling water

1 c. butter

2 c. sugar

4 eggs, separated

1 t. vanilla

2 c. flour

1 t. baking soda

½ t. salt

1 c. buttermilk

 Preheat oven to 350ºF. Spray the heck out of Line three 8” cake pans with Baker’s Joy.

 Melt chocolate in water, cool. Cream butter and sugar; beat in egg yolks. Stir in vanilla and chocolate. Mix flour, soda, and salt. Beat in flour mixture, alternately with buttermilk. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form; fold into batter. Pour batter into pans; bake for 30 minutes or until cake springs bake when lightly pressed in center. Cool 15 minutes; remove and cool on rack. Frost cake.

 Coconut-Pecan Frosting

 1½ c. evaporated milk

1½ c. sugar

4 slightly beaten egg yolks

¾ c. butter

1½ t. vanilla

2 c. shredded coconut

1 ½ c. chopped pecans

 Combine evaporated milk, sugar, slightly beaten egg yolks, butter or margarine and vanilla in saucepan. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened. Remove from heat. Stir in shredded coconut and chopped pecans. Cool until thick enough to spread.

 Makes 4-1/4 cups.

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