German Chocolate Cake

This recipe is courtesy of my Mom... she used to make this when I was younger and it was always one of my faves!

We always double up the icing recipe since it's a two layer cake and we like A LOT of icing on ours! :)

This time I also made a small batch of german chocolate icing to icing the outside of the bottom layer (to make it kind of a two tone cake)

Cake
4 squares of Bakers sweet chocolate
1/3 cup of water
3/4 cup butter softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 egg yolks
3/4 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup cake and pastry flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup buttermilk
3 egg whites

Icing (remember if you want you can double this up)
2/3 cup evaporated milk
2/3 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1/3 cup butter
3/4 tsp vanilla
1 cup flaked coconut
2/3 cup chopped pecans

For the cake - melt the chocolate with water in a microwaveable bowl and cool. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the egg yolks one at a time, beating after each addition. Blend in the vanilla and chocolate.

Sift the flour, baking soda and salt together in a seperate bowl and alternately add this into the other mixture along with the buttermilk 1/3 at a time on low speed. Once the mixtures are combined, blend on medium speed for 1 minute.

Beat the egg whites in a small bowl until stiff peaks form and fold into the cake batter.

Pour the batter into 2 greased pans and bake at 350 F for 40 - 50 minutes (or until toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean). Cook cakes completely before frosting.

For the icing - Combined the evaporated milk, sugar, egg yolks, butter and vanilla in a saucepan and cook over medium heat stirring constantly until the mixture comes to a boil (about 5 mins). Continue boiling, stirring constantly about 2 more minutes or until the mixture turns caramel colored. Add the coconut and pecans and then cool.

Turn the bottom layer of the cake upside and frost the top with the icing, add the top layer and frost the top of that.

If you want you can leave the sides unfrosted, or you can put less frosting in the middle and on top and do the whole cake... OR you can make some german chocolate icing like I did.

I didn't measure, but I used approximately 1 cup of icing sugar and about a 1/2 a cup of butter, I creamed it together and then added 2 (melted) squares of Bakers sweet chocolate and blended it until the icing was completely mixed with the chocolate. I used this to ice the bottome outer layer of the cake (refer to photo).

Enjoy!!