German Chocolate Cake

Last night after work I had a craving for German Chocolate Cake. Of course, this could’ve been attributed to the fact that I had leftover Coconut-Pecan Filling and Frosting from the wedding cake I did last weekend.

German Chocolate has nothing to do with Germany. It’s true. In fact, the German comes from the last name of the guy who invented the chocolate used to make the cake. Basically it has the sweetness of milk chocolate with the cacao content of semisweet, and also goes simply as sweet chocolate. If you decide to use sweet chocolate instead, you might want to omit a bit of sugar but the end result will just be a sweeter cake so there isn’t much harm in leaving the extra sugar in unless you’re diabetic, in which case you probably shouldn’t be indulging in such heavenly delights, I mean sinful decadence.

Cory’s German Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:
1½ sticks butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted

Have all ingredients at room temperature. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix together the flour, salt and baking soda and set aside. Beat the butter and sugars on medium to medium-high until pale and mixture looks fluffy. Reduce the speed to low and add the eggs one at a time until completely incorporated before beating in the vanilla. With the mixer still on low, alternate the flour mixture with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour and beating until combined. Finally, beat in the melted chocolate.

Spray 2 to 3 8-inch or 9-inch pans generously with nonstick cooking spray (Pam) or coat the pans with butter and parchment and more butter over the parchment paper. Divide the batter evenly between the pans and bake for 20-30 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely, about 1 hour. Or if you just want to be lazy, you can bake it in a 13x9 pan for 30 minutes and leave it in.

Substitutions:
Don’t have buttermilk? Try using a mixture of half milk and half sour cream whisked together.

Don’t have semisweet chocolate chips? Use 5 ounces unsweetened chocolate bars chopped and melted and add an extra 1/3 cup sugar to the batter or use 8 ounces milk chocolate chips and decrease the sugar by 1/3 cup.

What? No frosting recipe? Come back tomorrow for my Coconut-Pecan Filling and Frosting.