Let Her Eat Cake

Baking cakes is not a task I normally find myself involved in. If my convection oven could talk it would ask if I moved out or if my kitchen is under new management. But there I was standing in the kitchen, melting dark chocolate and looking for items I had long put away. This was not a cake for me but a birthday cake I was baking for a someone special I knew would love all the gooey delights that would follow.

German chocolate cake is a layered chocolate cake filled and topped with a coconut-pecan frosting. Buttermilk chocolate cakes have been popular in the South for a long time and the birthday girl loves southern cooking; however, I used almonds instead of pecans at her request.

Any recipe that begins with melting bakers sweetened chocolate can only be followed by sticks of butter, several hefty scoops of sugar and laddles of milk. This recipe is not for the faint of heart. Actually, I rather enjoyed letting my convection oven shine at a moment like this and anticipated the outcome of the cake as the chocolate aroma filled the air.

Not being much of a pastry chef the only mixer I own is a hand held mixer and I gained an appreciation for the advantages of a table top mixer to free my hands and make stirring go smoothly.

This frosting was one of the best cake frostings I've eaten. It was so rich I could not finish one piece.

Spoon a bite of vanilla ice cream on the side and it is perfection on a plate.