Classic German Chocolate Cake ... with a Slight Twist

A classic, homemade German chocolate cake, except instead of spreading the traditional coconut pecan frosting all over the cake, I've added a new twist of chocolate ganache.

Classic German Chocolate Cake

German chocolate cake is the traditional cake for my son's birthday and even when given a choice of any kind of cake, German chocolate is the one he picks. It is his daddy's favorite cake too, and you gotta admit, made from scratch anybody can see why. Rich, moist chocolate cake filled and topped with a gooey, buttery, decadent coconut and pecan filling - it is just ♫delicious♫.

It is interesting to learn in the history of German chocolate cake that it is not German at all!  Instead, it was simply a reader submitted recipe to a local Dallas newspaper back in 1957.  This homemaker had baked a chocolate cake using a product called Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate, a product named after Sam German, who developed this chocolate for Baker's Chocolate in 1852. She submitted the recipe to the paper, and the cake quickly became a popular request across the country. As it's popularity grew exponentially, eventually coconut made it's way into it, and over time, the cake was named German Sweet Chocolate Cake, and eventually, simply German Chocolate Cake.

Of course, not being one who is known to leave well enough alone, while I wanted to do this one in the traditional manner - meaning not frosted all over with the buttery cake filling, but left to only being between the layers and on the top - I'm not particularly fond of the traditional way of leaving the edges of the cake naked either. So, after pondering this for a bit, I thought that with the richness and sweet nature of this cake as it stands on its own, a simple chocoate ganache, just on the edges of the cake, seemed the perfect solution.

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Posted by Mary on January 19, 2010

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