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german chocolate cake | confections of a dietitian

My friends here in Oki know how much I love to bake cakes and cupcakes so, occasionally, I’ll get a special request for a birthday or other event. A good friend of mine had a birthday a few weeks ago and asked me to make her favorite kind of cake, German chocolate. Never one to say no to a baking adventure, I gladly started searching for the perfect recipe for her birthday. Through my research, I stumbled upon a little a little bit of a history worth mentioning. Interestingly enough, German chocolate cake is not from Germany, but named after an American, Samuel German, who created a dark baking chocolate for Baker’s Chocolate. The company named the chocolate bar after him and, later, a recipe was created using the specific chocolate bar, titled German’s Chocolate Cake. The apostrophe and “s” have since been dropped from the name, but the recipe remains an American favorite.

german chocolate cake | confections of a dietitian german chocolate cake | confections of a dietitian

I have to say I was surprised by how much I loved this entire cake. I shouldn’t be surprised, as David Lebovitz is the mastermind behind this particular version and everything I’ve ever made from him is phenomenal. I particularly loved the cake in this recipe. Unlike many oil based chocolate cakes that are rich and fudgy, this cake has a moderate chocolate flavor and is very light and fluffy! The milder chocolate flavor is due to the combination of unsweetened and bittersweet chocolate (aka, German’s chocolate). The airy texture that I loved is created by whipping the egg whites into a meringue and folding them into the batter. It is an extra step but totally worth it! I’ve already made this cake recipe again with a different frosting and loved it just as much. I think it will be my “go-to” for a lighter chocolate cake in the future!

german chocolate cake | confections of a dietitian        german chocolate cake | confections of a dietitian

As for the rest of this cake, it is filled with the traditional toasted coconut and pecan filling. Even though the filling is on the sweeter side, it is delicious and the caramel, toasted flavor balances nicely with the light chocolate cake. The whole cake is frosted with a whipped chocolate ganache. In my opinion, chocolate ganache tends tip the scale on richness for me, but this cake is an exception. The ganache adds just the right amount of dark chocolate that some might think is missing from the cake itself.

german chocolate cake | confections of a dietitian

My friend and I were scraping our plates clean after each eating a slice of this cake and I had a hard time sending the rest away with her. Needless to say, I think her birthday cake was a success and I know I’ll be making a lot more German chocolate cake in the future!