"Samuel German's" Chocolate Cake

As promised here is my recipe review for the German chocolate cake, which was the winning entry from my recent recipe poll. Making this cake from scratch is not a particularly difficult task but it does take patience and careful preparation. With my sister's birthday dinner taking place last weekend, I had the perfect opportunity to supply the cake for the birthday girl.

Let's first get some trivia out of the way. The German chocolate cake actually has nothing to do with the country, Germany. The name comes from a type of chocolate--German's Sweet Chocolate--offered by the Baker's company, which makes a variety of baking ingredients. The "German" in this case is Samuel German, an employee of Baker's who concocted this particular baking chocolate in the mid 1800's. There is some debate as to the origin of the original German Chocolate Cake recipe and in fact most recipes I've come across simply call for cocoa powder or bittersweet chocolate rather than German's chocolate. The key component, however, that I've seen in every German chocolate cake recipe is the rich coconut and pecan filling.

The cake I'm going to create is based on this recipe from MyHomeCooking.net and I believe the recipe is a slight adaptation from the original Baker's recipe found on the label of the German's Sweet Chocolate bar. I have a nicely formatted Word doc with all of these steps and tips, and if you're interested I can send it your way.

Cake ingredients:

• 1 package of Baker's Sweetened Chocolate
• 1/2 cup boiling water or very hot and strong coffee
• 1 cup butter or margarine
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 4 eggs whites
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour (sift first, then measure with scoop and pour method)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk

Note that the list calls for cake flour, which is a very light and fine flour suited well for baking certain types of cakes. The flour is processed in such a way that helps the cake absorb and distribute fats for an extremely moist and rich cake. You can find cake flour at most grocery stores for about $4 and I highly recommend you use it, but if you go with regular all-purpose flour then you'll need adjust the amount of flour to two cups.

Cake flour and the German's Sweet Chocolate

Gather all the ingredients and measured them into serving dishes or cups. Doing this helps keep you from making mistakes as you're going through the recipe, and it also keeps the stress level down as you won't be frantically looking for and measuring ingredients during the process.

The sifted, measured flour.

So let's begin.

1. Fire up your oven and set the dial to 350-degrees to get it preheated.

2. Break up the chocolate bar and place the pieces in a heat-proof bowl; pour 1/2 cup of boiling water over it and stir to melt into a liquid.


You can also use 1/2 cup of very hot coffee which deepens the chocolate flavor and gives more of a dark chocolate taste. The melted chocolate needs to cool before adding to the cake batter, so doing this first allows for time to cool.

3. Using a stand mixer (can also use a hand mixer) with the paddle attachment, cream the softened butter at medium speed for a minute and then add the sugar in a steady stream. After a few minutes you should have a fluffy mixture that resembles this:


Keen-eyed readers will notice the framed and signed menu from chef Ludo Lefebvre, which he graciously provided during my LudoBites visit. I can't wait for him to open a new restaurant in LA!

4. Now slowly add the egg yolks and beat until no streaks remain, then pour in the chocolate mixture and vanilla as the mixer is on low speed.

5. Add the salt and baking soda to the sifted flour, then with the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture to the bowl, alternating with additions of the buttermilk. Don't pour all flour or buttermilk in at once or else they won't mix smoothly. Add a little flour, a little buttermilk, a little flour, etc.

When you're done mixing you'll have a cake batter that looks like this:


But it's not quite done yet.

At this time you'll want to prepare 3 9" cake pans by spraying Pam for Baking in each one. You can also use the butter and flour method but with Pam it's so much easier and quicker.


6. Place the egg whites in a clean mixing bowl and beat at high speed with a wire whisk until stiff peaks form; this should take about 4-5 minutes. In the pictures below, you can see what stiff peaks look like in the third picture--when you lift up the whisk, the formed peaks should not collapse. Those are stiff peaks. I took the second picture after about 2 minutes of beating to show the soft peak stage; keep beating until you have the proper stiff peak stage or else your cake will never achieve its maximum rise.


7. When you're done beating the egg whites, gently fold them into the cake batter with a flat spatula. This has to be done quickly to retain the volume from the whipped egg whites.

8. The batter is now ready for the pans. It will be very thick so use a spatula to gently coax the batter to the pan edge, and try to get an equal amount of batter in each pan. Give the pans a good tap to remove air pockets and then insert into the heated oven.

9. Bake for 30 minutes and pull one pan out to check for done-ness using the toothpick method. If the toothpick doesn't come out mostly clean, then bake for another 5 - 10 minutes. Let the cakes cool on a wire rack.



Meanwhile, let's get going with the coconut and pecan filling. Gather up the following ingredients and measure into serving cups or bowls:

• 1 1/2 cups evaporated milk
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 5 beaten egg yolks
• 1 cup butter
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 cups Baker's Angel Flake Coconut
• 1 1/2 cup chopped pecans (roasted)

10. Scramble the egg yolks in a small bowl and set aside.

11. Place the butter, evaporated milk, sugar, and vanilla in a sauce pan over medium heat. Stir constantly for a few minutes.

12. When the mixture just starts to boil, remove from heat and add a little of the mixture to the egg yolks, stirring constantly to combine the two. The idea is to slowly brings the eggs up to the same temperature as the milk mixture. This is known as tempering and if you skip or hurry this step then you risk scrambling the eggs. That won't be good.

13. Slowly add the egg mixture to the pan and stir over medium heat for about 5 minutes.

14. Remove from heat and mix in the toasted pecans and coconut. Set aside to cool for 30 minutes or so. Here's the completed filling:

This would be so good over pancakes!

Back to the cakes, which you should let cool to room temperature to make for easier spreading of the filling. I prefer the slice off the cake mounds so I can get a flat and even arrangement of layers. There's a tool you can buy for this but you can just use a serrated knife and a steady hand. Hold the knife steady and spin the cake around while gently moving the knife towards the center.



15. Spread the filling on the first layer and then repeat with the two other layers. It might help to first portion the filling into thirds so you don't run out before getting to the top layer. When you're done you'll have this:


You're certainly welcome to stop at this point and trust me, this cake is divine as it stands, but you know this foodie just can't leave it alone so let's kick things up a notch. I saw this chocolate sauce recipe from John Park--who is the pastry chef at Riva restaurant in Santa Monica--and I knew it'd be perfect for drizzling on top and along the sides of the cake. The sauce is very easy to make, keeps for a week, and can be used for drizzling over strawberries, sweet breads, and just about anything else. Or if you're like Fonda and I, you'll eat it straight out of the bowl with a spoon. Yums! The ingredients list and steps are detailed at the provided link, but here's what it looks like when complete:


I should note that I used marscapone instead of creme fraiche--you can also use sour cream--and I also halved the recipe because I knew that even a halved amount would be more than enough for the cake. I poured the sauce over the top and the sides, then coated the whole cake with toasted hazelnuts and toasted coconut. This is end result:


The toasted hazelnuts add wonderful crunch to each bite, and the deep, rich chocolate sauce brings a level of sophistication that will have your guests begging for the recipe. No need to beg, the recipe is right in front of you.

Here it is all boxed and ready for transport to my sister's dinner in Torrance:


And now for a slice of this wonderful German chocolate cake:


It's a little rough but the dull knife I got from the restaurant was practically useless. Yes I'm blaming the knife for my mediocre cake-cutting.

It's tough to accurately estimate the cost of ingredients, but I'm guessing it's around $15 based on the portions of the main ingredients. Of course this will vary depending on how well stocked your pantry is. For comparison's sake, the German Chocolate Cake at SusieCakes in Brentwood goes for $46, and it's extremely good. I think mine is just a bit more sophisticated with more complex flavors, whereas SusieCakes' version is lighter and sweeter. That said, you're not necessarily making this cake to save money; you're making it because you want to make it and because you want something with your signature on it.