German Chocolate Cake

The other day I received a request for German chocolate cake. When I think about any sort of German cake, the only thing that comes to mind is Black Forest Cake. However, kirsch flavored chocolate cake with soaked cherries wasn't what my friend had in mind. She described a chocolate cake with coconut and pecans. Didn't sound German at all.

Upon further investigation, turns out German chocolate is actually an American atrocity. Go figure. According to Wikipedia: "the name derives from Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate, which was created in 1852 by an Englishman named Samuel German for the Baker's Chocolate brand. The original recipe for "German's Chocolate Cake" was sent by a Dallas, Texas homemaker to a local newspaper in 1957. The cake became quite popular and General Foods — which owned the brand at the time — distributed the recipe to other newspapers in the country, and sales of Baker's Chocolate are said to have increased by as much as 73%. The possessive form (German's) was dropped in subsequent publications, forming the "German Chocolate Cake" identity we know today." Interesting.

 I turned towards one of my favorite food bloggers, David Lebovitz, for his German Chocolate Cake Recipe. The cake is composed of three parts, the cake, filling, and frosting. Since I was going to bring the dessert to a baseball game, I decided to make cupcakes.

The chocolate cake is pretty much like a chocolate genoise/sponge and made in the same fashion: folding a meringue mixture into the cake batter to lighten it.

The filling part was a bit intense. First you cook cream, egg, and sugar until it thickens. Then coconut, butter, and chopped pecans are added. The filling is a bit too sugary-sweet for my tastes, and ends up looking like a gloppy mess.

I filled the cupcakes with the coconut pecan filling, topped them with chocolate frosting, and used a little of the filling and coconut for garnish. It was definitely a crowd-pleaser, though I know that it would raise an eyebrow or two back in France.