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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White Almond Cake with Creamy White Almond Frosting

As I've mentioned numerous times on this blog, my favorite dessert is cookies. But this wasn’t always the case; growing up I far preferred cake. Two kinds were among my favorites: devil’s food with white icing from a bakery, or my mom’s homemade German chocolate. I never told her this, but I think I tended to prefer the bakery cake (that frosting!). There was something about digging into one of those sugar-beribboned, icing-flowered layer or sheet cakes that I really enjoyed. As I got older my favorite bakery cake changed from devil’s food with white icing to white cake with white icing, perhaps because of the many weddings I came to attend. 

When I was in college I met a girl of like mind, who instantly became my best friend. Back then, we were thin and pretty, and able to burn thousands of calories easily. On Saturday nights (in the days when stores were closed on Sundays), we would head to Target, back when Target had a bakery (a.k.a the good old days), just before closing, to see what cakes they had left over, and buy one for half price. Then we'd spend the weekend eating it. We didn’t bother with plates, we each had our own fork, she would start at one end, I would start at the other, and we would dig in. We never gained an ounce. As you can imagine, we ended up with some rather interesting cakes. There were cakes with birthday wishes, wedding wishes, retirement wishes, anniversary wishes, and this one (I’m the grinning idiot on the right) wishing Irving a Happy Bar Mitzvah.

My birthday is Sunday. It had become pretty much a tradition for my mother to bake me a German chocolate cake every year. When my mother passed away, my younger son, Andrew, would buy me a German chocolate cake from a local French pastry shop, because he didn’t want that tradition to die.

This year I thought that I would make my own cake. I bought ingredients for German chocolate, but then decided that I was going to try my hand at a bakery-style white cake. This is a popular recipe for a dense and delicious wedding-style white cake that is easy to make. I altered it a bit because I wanted my cake to be pure white, so instead of using pure vanilla extract, that can turn both cake and icing dark, I used clear vanilla flavoring. I was quite pleased with the outcome. Friends and family both were appalled that I'd made my own birthday cake, but I was really happy to do it. Thank goodness I put half in the freezer because I cannot be trusted with a delicious cake and a fork!

White Almond Cake
Adapted from Allrecipes

1 18.25-oz. pkg. white cake mix
1 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. sugar
3/4 t. salt
1-1/3 c. water
1 c. sour cream
2 T. vegetable oil
1 t. pure almond extract

  1 t. clear vanilla flavoring
4 egg whites

Preheat oven to 325° F. Grease and flour 2 8-inch round cake pans.

Stir together white cake mix, flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl until well mixed. Poor in water, sour cream, vegetable oil, almond extract, and vanilla flavoring. Beat to combine. Add egg whites, and beat with an electric mixer on low until all ingredients are mixed, about four minutes.

Pour the batter into prepared pans and bake until the top is light golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 45 to 55 minutes. Allow to cool in pan 10 minutes before turning out onto rack to cool completely.

Almond Butter Cream Frosting

3 cups confectioners sugar
1/3 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon clear vanilla flavoring
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract

  1 to 2 tablespoons whole milk

Beat together sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until creamy. Add remaining ingredients and beat at high-speed for five minutes, until light and fluffy, add more milk to thin, if necessary. I made this one and a half times in order to frost the cake, and for the decorations on top.

Store frosted cake in the refrigerator in order to keep the frosting firm. It was a warm day with high humidity when I made this, so that’s what I chose to do. If you live in a cooler, drier part of the country, you may leave the cake out on the counter.

PRINT RECIPE

If chocolate is more your thing, this Chocolate Malt Cake with Chocolate Malt Frosting is mighty impressive.

This post is linked to:

Happiness is Homemade Sunday

What’s for Dinner Sunday

Over the Moon

Smells Good Sunday

Dishing It & Digging It

Cooking & Crafting with J&J

Amaze Me Monday

Busy Mondays

Over the Moon

Celebrate Your Story

Inspire Me Tuesday

Full Plate Thursday

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