German Chocolate Cake aka Birthday Cake

My mom has made this cake for birthdays for as long as I remember. Today I made this birthday cake as a surprise for my mom's birthday. I didn't have a cake cover or carrying deal, so I ended up putting a big bowl over the top and putting the whole thing in a box. My mom didn't know I made a cake, she just thought I was being weird bringing a box into the restaurant. It was a good surprise. Delicious too. I plan to carry on this recipe as my family's birthday cake too.

German chocolate cake aka Birthday Cake

                                                                                 
 Mom


1 pkg (4 oz) Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate
1/2 cup boiling water
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cups shifted all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter
1 cup buttermilk
4 egg whites, stiffly beaten

Prepare your 3 pans: trace around your pan on to the parchment paper. Cut out the circle. Spray the bottom of the pan with flour spray, place the parchment circle, and then spray again with flour spray. If you don't have flour spray you could use regular cooking spray and flour but it is tons easier to just find the flour spray.

Melt chocolate in the boiling water. cool. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg yolks (save the whites!!), 1 at a time, beating well after each yolk.

Blend in vanilla and chocolate. Sift (or whisk) flour with soda and salt in separate bowl, add alternately with buttermilk to chocolate mixture, mixing after each addition until smooth. Fold in beaten whites (mix until white stiff peaks)

Pour into three 9 inch layer pans, lined on bottoms with parchment paper and sprayed with flour spray.

Bake at 350* for 30-35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes in pan then pop out on to wire racks. Frost tops only.

4 egg whites

Mixing in the flour and buttermilk

Ready to fold in the egg whites

stiff peaks

Sad story: about 15 minutes after I took this picture I checked on the cakes and the bottom cake had risen enough that it was almost touching the top rack. Sadly as I was trying to get it out of the oven so I could rearrange some of the batter got caught on the upper rack and made the cake top weird. But in the end it became the bottom layer and no one would ever know!

Taking the parchment paper off!

The base layer on the platter.

Coconut-Pecan Frosting
1 cup evaporated milk
1cup sugar
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 cup flake coconut
chopped pecans


Combine 1 cup evaporated milk, 1 cup sugar, 3 slightly beaten egg yolks, 1/2 cup butter and 1 tsp vanilla. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened, about 12 minutes. Add 1 1/3 cups Flake coconut (I use a whole bag of coconut. Depending on many factors you might need more, put enough in that it looks thick enough but it still needs to be pourable) and chopped pecans. Cool until thick enough to spread. Makes 2 1/2 cups- Just the right amount for this cake.

The frosting

Happy Birthday Mom!