Lemon Sugar

Sweets, treats & comfort food!

Cake

German Chocolate Fudge Cake

Oh, this cake.  This cake.

THIS CAKE.

This cake made me say bad words today.

See, I like to make my life extra-stressful sometimes.  I’ve told you before that my Mom and Dad still have Sunday dinners at their house, and my siblings all get together and eat, play, act like we’re still kids and watch our own kids wreak havoc on my parent’s house once a week.  So sometimes, I like to make dessert, especially big obnoxious desserts like this one, to share with my big family.

Luckily, my parents live less than five minutes away from me.  Unluckily, I don’t have a good way to transport a cake that weighs almost as much as my three-year-old and is way too high for those cake carriers.

That’s where the stress comes in.  This brilliant little food blogger likes to put these monster cakes on to a cookie sheet and balance them on the front seat of my car, then drive annoyingly slow, holding my breath and crossing my fingers and toes that I don’t make a wrong move and cause the whole thing to fall on the floor of the car.

Until today, I was lucky.  This one made it to Mom and Dad’s house.  We ate it.  (Well, we ate about 1/4 of it.  It’s HUGE!) Then I packed it up, put it back on the cookie sheet and tested fate once again.

But this time, I lost.  Cake everywhere.  On my front seat, the door, the center console, my elbow, my fingers, my face, and eventually my hair.  I said bad words.  I almost cried.  Half a roll of paper towels later and my car is cleaned up, and the cake is in a slanty, smooshy blob on my counter top.

I’m pretty sure that we’ll eat it anyway.  On the bright side, now it fits in a cake dome.  Maybe I should mush it all up and make cake balls?  Is that kind of like turning lemons into lemonade?  Turning smooshed cake into cake balls?

Is smooshed even a word?

This is (was) my version of a German Chocolate Cake.  It’s a light, sweet chocolate cake, filled with coconut pecan filling, and frosted with a decadent milk chocolate fudge frosting.

It’s fantastic.  It takes a few steps to make, but I just kind of spread it out over my morning and didn’t rush anything, and it didn’t bother me that it took some time.

If you’re a fan of German Chocolate Cake, I definitely urge you to give this one a go.  I did double the cake recipe below to make a tall, 4-layer cake.  The frosting and filling recipes were enough to frost and fill my bigger cake, but I didn’t reduce them below.
Enjoy!

German Chocolate Cake
Yield:  2-layer 9-inch cake; approximately 12 servings
(Note that I doubled the recipe below for the cake pictured)
German Chocolate Cake:
  • 4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
  • 6 Tablespoons heavy cream
  • 4 large eggs, separated
  • 2 sticks (1 cup or 16 Tablespoons) unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 1 and 1/2 cups sugar, divided
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup buttermilk (or sweet milk (1 cup milk plus 2 Tbs vinegar, allow to sit 5 min) at room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F).  Prepare two 9-inch cake pans with baking spray and parchment paper.  Set aside.
Using a double boiler (or microwave, see frosting recipe below for tips) melt the chocolate with the cream, stirring until smooth.  Set aside to cool to room temperature.
In the bowl of a stand mixer (make sure it’s clean, and dry), use the whisk attachment to beat the egg whites at high speed until soft peaks form.  Slowly add 1/4 cup of sugar and continue beating until peaks are stiff and glossy.  Transfer the egg whites to a different bowl, and set aside.  You will use the mixer bowl again, no need to clean.
Back to the stand mixer, change attachment to the paddle, and combine the butter with the remaining (1 and 1/4 cups) of sugar.  Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, 4-5 minutes.  Add the melted chocolate, beat until combined.  Then, add the egg yolks one at a time, and scrape the bowl as needed.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Add half of these dry ingredients into the butter mixture and beat until just incorporated.  Add the buttermilk and vanilla, then beat again until just incorporated.  Add the rest of the dry ingredients, scrape down the bowl and beat until just combined.  Remove the bowl from the mixer, and using a rubber spatula, gently fold the egg whites into the batter.  Start with about 1/3 of the egg whites, combine completely (this will help lighten the batter) and then fold in the remaining whites.
Pour the batter evenly into the prepared cake pans and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.  Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then cool completely on a wire rack.
Coconut Pecan Filling:
(Note:  if you are making a two layer cake, you can halve this recipe)
  • 1 and 1/2 cups chopped pecans, toasted
  • 2 and 2/3 cups sweetened, flaked coconut
  • 1 can (12-14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup (1 and 1/2 sticks or 12 Tablespoons) unsalted butter
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
In a large saucepan, whisk together egg yolks, condensed milk and vanilla until well blended. Add sugars and butter and cook over medium heat, stirring often, for 12 minutes, until mixture is thickened. Remove from heat. Mix in coconut and pecans. Cool to room temperature.
Fudge Frosting:
  • 12 oz chocolate, chopped (milk, semi-sweet or bittersweet OK, your preference)
  • 1 and 1/3 cup powdered/confectioners sugar
  • 2 and 1/2 sticks (20 Tablespoons or 1 and 1/4 cups) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup cocoa powder (Dutch-process if possible)
  • 1/4 cup hot water
Melt chocolate, and allow to cool to room temperature.  You can either melt it in a double boiler, or slowly melt it in the microwave.  The double boiler is the safer method, as you can monitor the melting and stir it while you are watching it.  If you melt it in the microwave, heat it at 15 second intervals until it’s mostly melted, then stir or whisk to use the heat of the chocolate to melt it completely.  Don’t overheat it in the microwave or the chocolate will burn and seize.
In a small bowl, whisk together cocoa powder, vanilla and hot water.  Set aside.  Combine the butter and sugar, beating with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.  Add the melted, cooled chocolate and beat until combined, scraping the bowl frequently.  Add the vanilla and chocolate mixture, beat until well combined.
To Assemble Cake:
Place a cake layer on a cake board or serving platter.  Top with a generous amount of coconut filling, without allowing the filling to drip down the sides of the cake.  Top with another cake layer, and repeat.  Do not put coconut filling on top of the cake.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes to set filling.  (This will prevent the cake from sliding around while frosting.
On cooled cake, pour about 1/3 of the fudge frosting on to the top layer.  Using an offset spatula, slowly work the frosting on to the top of the cake and down the sides.  Coat the entire cake with this crumb coat.  This layer doesn’t have to look pretty, this is just to cover all of the surfaces and prevent crumbs in your final layer.  If you need more, take just what you need, leaving 1/2 to 1/3 of the frosting for your final layer.
Refrigerate the crumb coat for 15-20 minutes or until just set.  Repeat the frosting process, this time taking care to make it smooth and cover all of the exposed cake.
Decorate and garnish as desired.
Enjoy!
Recipe source and inspiration:  Filling adapted from Shared Sugar.  Cake adapted from David Lebovitz.
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Comments

  3. Beautiful cake! I’m glad that the accident happened on your way home and not on your way to dinner!

    Reply

  6. Going through pinterest all you see is this cake!! It is absolutely beautiful. I just love your post and your writing really puts a smile to my face! Will definitely visit more often!!

    Reply

  8. WOW! I think that’s the only word for this cake! pity your car decided it wanted it’s own slice!

    Reply

  9. This cake is Heavenly!! Thanks for linking up to our Strut Your Stuff Saturday! We loved having you and hope you will come back soon! -The Sisters

    Reply

  10. Oh my GOSH! This cake is AMAZING!!! I’ve never made German Chocolate cake before, but its one of my husband’s favorites. I made this for his birthday and he said that cake alone made him want to marry me all over again =) thanks for sharing your amazing recipes!

    Reply

    • Glad you loved it! 🙂

      Reply

  11. German Chocolate is my absolute favorite and this recipe is amazing!!

    Reply

  12. Do you use sweetened condensed milk or evaporated? Your recipe calls for one and states the other in the directions……..

    Reply

    • Sweetened condensed. Fixed the recipe, thanks!

      Reply

  13. Oh my gawd! What a cake? I aspire to make a cake like this one one day. . I’m sorry yours toppled over in your car. . but yes, hope you still ate it or made cake balls. . don’t let this gloriousness and I’m sure deliciousness go to waste!

    Reply

    • 🙂 Not as hard as it looks – if I can do it anyone can! Thanks for the nice words!

      Reply

  14. For a German Chocolate cake it should be German Chocolate that is used. To each his own though. I also had a cake fly off of my Moms lap and land on my feet in a car! It was my sisters birthday cake!! We ate it anyway. It’s all in the family!!

    Reply

  15. I only used the frosting recipe because I made a German Chocolate cake. And I make my own filling recipe. But I was looking for a recipe for the outside frosting. This one was AHMAZING!!!!! Used milk chocolate and it was as if i melted a hershey bar with cool whip. It was light, rich, creamy, and plentiful. I only used about half to frost the outside of my cake. Logging this for future use.

    Reply

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