German Chocolate! On the Fly...

My dad's big 50th birthday party was last Sunday so I decided to make German chocolate cake, his favorite. I've never been a fan of German Chocolate, it tends to be way too sweet and rich for my taste. Since it's my dad's favorite, I've eaten many slices in my lifetime. Not many bakeries make German chocolate cake in our area and they tend to be expensive since the signature caramel frosting is supposed to be chock full of pecans.  The cakes from the grocery store are straight up disgusting: sugary crystallized fudge frosting with no chocolate flavor and jelled sugar "caramel" with specks of pulverized nuts. In my mind grocery store German chocolate is NEVER worth it and those from bakeries are rarely so. From a baking standpoint, this cake requires extra work since there's a filling as well as frosting and caramel can be unforgiving. Taking all this into consideration I set out to make a German chocolate cake that was actually worth a damn for my dear old Dad.

The night before I had Ashley over for a movie night. The plan was for her to show me new makeup freebies and for me to show her an impressive "date night" dinner while we watched a movie. We ended up drinking wine and eating leftover Chinese. Mission accomplished! In hindsight it was probably better that we didn't cook because early the next morning, mere hours before my dad's party, I rushed around to make the cake. If that wasn't enough craziness I decided, in all my wisdom, to whip up breakfast for all three of us: maple glazed oven crisp bacon, scrambled eggs and fresh buttermilk biscuits. The oven was already hot so why not? It seems that I have a real problem with setting my expectations way too high. Too much is never enough! So I end up making a few too many dishes, fixating on decorations and worrying, worrying, worrying. But it all comes out in the wash and so far almost everything gets done with just enough time to sip some wine and relax.

I started with the cake, Beatty's Chocolate Cake courtesy of Ina Garten, which has been my go to chocolate cake recipe for a few years. It's a variation on the Best Ever Chocolate Cake recipe on the back of the Hershey's Cocoa Powder box substituting buttermilk for the milk and fresh brewed hot coffee for the boiling water. Usually I play around with recipes from the first or second time I use them, using them as a sketch of what I want to achieve with my own tweaks. However, I have used this recipe with very few adjustments. It's what a classic American chocolate cake should taste like: great chocolate flavor with a light, fluffy and moist texture. Wait...isn't this supposed to be GERMAN chocolate cake? more on that later. It baked up without incident as an old trusted recipe should. I just checked the oven down from 350 degrees F to 325 degrees F, because I was using an 18"x18" pan and wanted an even layer that was moist throughout.

On to the filling! I improvised the caramel pecan and coconut filling based on the bones I found online here and here. Caramel is just cooked sugar so what distinguishes one from another is what sugars are being caramelized, the amount of moisture and additives like butter. For this frosting I used approximately 2 cans of sweetened condensed milk,1/2 cup of superfine sugar, 4 cups of heavy cream, 4 tbs butter, 3/4 cup of Coffee Mate Natural Bliss Vanilla plus some 2% milk,vanilla extract, couple pinches of salt and a couple pinches of baking soda plus 2 cups each of pecans and coconut (sweetened flaked is just fine). Not precise I know! I may try and work out an exact recipe and post it later since it turned out pretty well. You may pooh pooh the idea of a processed dairy product going into a cake from scratch. I worried about it a bit too. However, Coffee Mate Natural Bliss (CMNB) has been my newly discovered fancy coffee at home addition. We bought it for Mr. Bumble's 30th birthday camping trip and were hooked from then on. It contains cream, milk, sugar and vanilla flavoring.I think it added a roundness to the vanilla flavor of the caramel. I'm NOT APOLOGIZING hahaha.

 I threw all the ingredients except for the baking soda pecans and coconut into a pot over medium low heat. It had been at least 6 months since I had made caramel anything so I forgot that caramel expands a lot while cooking. I had to change pots twice but eventually it was bubbling merrily on the stove in a 5 quart stock pot with a nice heavy bottom. In my experience if you're making up a big batch of caramel you can relax a little bit  during the first part of cooking before it turns golden. Stir it occasionally and watch so it doesn't boil over, but chill out a little bit so you aren't slaving away. The caramelization started and the mixture bubbled up which reminded me that most caramel recipes call for baking soda which I hastily added to prevent a molten sugar mess. While the caramel was cooking I toasted the pecans at 325 degrees F until they were nice and golden brown. Next time I'll definitely toast the coconut too. after the caramel was a nice golden brown I added the nuts and coconut.

The frosting was a super easy fudge frosting I tweak until it's just right:
2 Sticks of unsalted butter
6 cups of confectioner's sugar
11.5 oz bag of Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips
3/4 approx cocoa powder ( add more for taste and consistency)
3/4 cup cream or the fattiest milk on hand (add more to get the consistency right)
2 tsp vanilla
Melt the chocolate and butter together in the microwave add the other ingredients and stir. The results, once you reach the right consistency, are a super chocolatey not too sweet frosting. The glossy appearance disappears once it's fully cooled :(. You can thin it out for a glaze or just use as is. If it gets too hard add milk a tablespoon at a time until it's just right or soften it in the microwave.